Figure 2

Longevity of bestsellers. Distribution of (A) fiction and (B) nonfiction bestsellers based on the number of weeks they stayed on the list. The number of weeks is shown in logarithmic scale to account for both the large number of short stays and the few exceptionally longer presence. We marked on the first columns the corresponding linear scale numbers for clarity. The best rank a book achieved on the New York Times (C) fiction and (D) nonfiction bestseller list vs. the number of weeks it stayed on the list. The size of the dots indicates the number of books with the same attributes. Overall, the better a book’s best ranking, the higher is its probability of staying longer in the list