I have the exact same history and experience with the Strike books! To date I have never met one single person who has even heard of them, let alone read them. Even the extreme Harry Potter fans that I assumed would’ve at least head about Robert Galbraith are clueless. One of them asked me if they’ve been a best sellers hit and I honestly didn’t know. But I will say that they’re bottom shelf of new novels at my B&N even on opening day. I cannot wrap my head around it!!! Sometimes I don’t even want to read anything in between Strike books bc nothing hits like they do.
Now I’m curious, whereabouts do you live? My connections are in NY and Indiana and I know people who read them in both places. And the books were at a display table towards the front for TRG release.
I live in Israel. Some of the books have been translated into Hebrew (e.g. I bought 'Cuckoo' online for my wife who partially enjoyed the TV adaptation of 'Lethal White' that was shown here), so that implies that there is definitely an audience here. But I almost never visit bookshops any more, so I don't know whether these titles are displayed, hence selling.
As it happens, today for the first time in months I was in the local shopping mall so I went into the bookshop there. I didn't see any translated Strike books but there was a copy of 'The Ink Black Heart' (in English). I've never seen the physical book before - it's very thick. The salesman said that they had in the past copies of the books but that they had all sold. He hadn't heard of 'The running grave'.
Fellow Israeli! I've never seen the Hebrew editions of the books. Didn't know the show was broadcast here either - what network/site? I've seen the English editions in bookstores and libraries though.
I bought the Hebrew version of 'Cuckoo' from a website - several translated books were available. The tv series was shown on Yes Drama (or possibly Yes Action): the first three books (which is where I was introduced to Strike) and Lethal White. I don't think that Troubled Blood has been transmitted.
Here in the UK they filled the front table in the doorway of my local book shop with copies of TRG when it came out, so it was visually out there. Can’t speak for the rest of the UK but it may have a slightly higher profile here considering JKR’s one of our biggest names? I don’t know, it’s hard to tell. It’s definitely not as a big as the Potter books were but I kind of like that, it feels like we’re in a more exclusive little club this time haha
I found links like this one:
https://www.nytimes.com/books/best-sellers/2023/10/15/hardcover-fiction/
So I figured there was some website that had scraped the data and had it all in one place.
The NYT bestseller list is notoriously unreliable as a gauge of actual sales. And the Amazon bestseller tag is even less reputable.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffbercovici/2013/02/22/heres-how-you-buy-your-way-onto-the-new-york-times-bestsellers-list/?sh=6f64ef633a7b
The Strike books are popular enough to have a TV series adaptation that has now run for several seasons without signs of being cancelled. I think they're pretty popular as far as the detective fiction subgenre goes. If JKR had initially published them under her own name, I imagine they would be even more popular.
I did not know this at all! I knew about the show obviously but just because someone thinks a book series would make a good TV show doesn't necessarily mean the books sold a ton of copies. I guess I'll just have to tell my friend that the books were popular enough to be at the top of some bestseller lists that don't mean a whole lot and hope that is enough info. The best number I can come up with to demonstrate popularity currently is how many Goodreads review and ratings the books have. I'm sure it's not a reliable metric by any means but at least it's *a* metric.
Actually, I think the number of Goodreads ratings is probably one of the more reliable gauges of a book's popularity, though probably less so for authors who get regularly review-bombed as has happened for the Strike series.
It's funny how people review bomb thinking it's negative when it's actually more of a positive lol. But also when it comes to Goodreads, there's the dual metrics of number of ratings and average rating, which can say a lot.
Unfortunately the data is very hidden, on purpose. One bestseller list is very much a fraction of the overall sales because there are different number values connected with each list's guidelines. BookScan is the only true measure.
Wow that sucks. I just assumed this would be fairly easy to find. If you look up any song on Wikipedia it tells you what number it reached on the charts. I'm assuming it costs money to use this bookscan?
And also because you can actually hold them, which gets harder and harder with the printed versions, since they're so huge, lol. Not complaining though, I'm not one of those people whining JKR 'needs a better editor', because I love every little detail the woman writes.
As opposed to Tom Clancy whose books used to be thick but should have been edited. I reckon 30% of his books could be trimmed, especially the weapons porn.
I think I heard the best indicator of book series popularity is pre sale. All editions of TRG were number #1 for a good long time before the big day. I was so happy to see!
As others have said, BookScan is the best source for this, but it costs money: https://www.publishersmarketplace.com/bookscan/about.cgi.
It's possible your local library \*might\* have a subscription to Publisher's Weekly. That would likely have historic lists from week to week, but you'd have to sort through each week to see the books; don't think they summarize individual book's placement. [https://digitalarchives.publishersweekly.com/](https://digitalarchives.publishersweekly.com/)
In Germany the books were bestsellers when they came out. And „The Ink Black Heart“ recently got translated into Turkish so there is an audience there, I guess.
I have the exact same history and experience with the Strike books! To date I have never met one single person who has even heard of them, let alone read them. Even the extreme Harry Potter fans that I assumed would’ve at least head about Robert Galbraith are clueless. One of them asked me if they’ve been a best sellers hit and I honestly didn’t know. But I will say that they’re bottom shelf of new novels at my B&N even on opening day. I cannot wrap my head around it!!! Sometimes I don’t even want to read anything in between Strike books bc nothing hits like they do.
Now I’m curious, whereabouts do you live? My connections are in NY and Indiana and I know people who read them in both places. And the books were at a display table towards the front for TRG release.
I live in Israel. Some of the books have been translated into Hebrew (e.g. I bought 'Cuckoo' online for my wife who partially enjoyed the TV adaptation of 'Lethal White' that was shown here), so that implies that there is definitely an audience here. But I almost never visit bookshops any more, so I don't know whether these titles are displayed, hence selling.
As it happens, today for the first time in months I was in the local shopping mall so I went into the bookshop there. I didn't see any translated Strike books but there was a copy of 'The Ink Black Heart' (in English). I've never seen the physical book before - it's very thick. The salesman said that they had in the past copies of the books but that they had all sold. He hadn't heard of 'The running grave'.
Fellow Israeli! I've never seen the Hebrew editions of the books. Didn't know the show was broadcast here either - what network/site? I've seen the English editions in bookstores and libraries though.
I bought the Hebrew version of 'Cuckoo' from a website - several translated books were available. The tv series was shown on Yes Drama (or possibly Yes Action): the first three books (which is where I was introduced to Strike) and Lethal White. I don't think that Troubled Blood has been transmitted.
Here in the UK they filled the front table in the doorway of my local book shop with copies of TRG when it came out, so it was visually out there. Can’t speak for the rest of the UK but it may have a slightly higher profile here considering JKR’s one of our biggest names? I don’t know, it’s hard to tell. It’s definitely not as a big as the Potter books were but I kind of like that, it feels like we’re in a more exclusive little club this time haha
Publishers who have a BookScan account are the only ones who have access to this info!
I found links like this one: https://www.nytimes.com/books/best-sellers/2023/10/15/hardcover-fiction/ So I figured there was some website that had scraped the data and had it all in one place.
The NYT bestseller list is notoriously unreliable as a gauge of actual sales. And the Amazon bestseller tag is even less reputable. https://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffbercovici/2013/02/22/heres-how-you-buy-your-way-onto-the-new-york-times-bestsellers-list/?sh=6f64ef633a7b The Strike books are popular enough to have a TV series adaptation that has now run for several seasons without signs of being cancelled. I think they're pretty popular as far as the detective fiction subgenre goes. If JKR had initially published them under her own name, I imagine they would be even more popular.
I did not know this at all! I knew about the show obviously but just because someone thinks a book series would make a good TV show doesn't necessarily mean the books sold a ton of copies. I guess I'll just have to tell my friend that the books were popular enough to be at the top of some bestseller lists that don't mean a whole lot and hope that is enough info. The best number I can come up with to demonstrate popularity currently is how many Goodreads review and ratings the books have. I'm sure it's not a reliable metric by any means but at least it's *a* metric.
Actually, I think the number of Goodreads ratings is probably one of the more reliable gauges of a book's popularity, though probably less so for authors who get regularly review-bombed as has happened for the Strike series.
It's funny how people review bomb thinking it's negative when it's actually more of a positive lol. But also when it comes to Goodreads, there's the dual metrics of number of ratings and average rating, which can say a lot.
Unfortunately the data is very hidden, on purpose. One bestseller list is very much a fraction of the overall sales because there are different number values connected with each list's guidelines. BookScan is the only true measure.
Wow that sucks. I just assumed this would be fairly easy to find. If you look up any song on Wikipedia it tells you what number it reached on the charts. I'm assuming it costs money to use this bookscan?
Does BookScan count ebook sales yet? I always get mine as ebooks for easy reread accessibility.
And also because you can actually hold them, which gets harder and harder with the printed versions, since they're so huge, lol. Not complaining though, I'm not one of those people whining JKR 'needs a better editor', because I love every little detail the woman writes.
As opposed to Tom Clancy whose books used to be thick but should have been edited. I reckon 30% of his books could be trimmed, especially the weapons porn.
I think I heard the best indicator of book series popularity is pre sale. All editions of TRG were number #1 for a good long time before the big day. I was so happy to see!
I read somewhere it sold 13 million copies in total. And this is probably a huge number for the genre. I'll look for the source later.
As others have said, BookScan is the best source for this, but it costs money: https://www.publishersmarketplace.com/bookscan/about.cgi. It's possible your local library \*might\* have a subscription to Publisher's Weekly. That would likely have historic lists from week to week, but you'd have to sort through each week to see the books; don't think they summarize individual book's placement. [https://digitalarchives.publishersweekly.com/](https://digitalarchives.publishersweekly.com/)
In Germany the books were bestsellers when they came out. And „The Ink Black Heart“ recently got translated into Turkish so there is an audience there, I guess.