Books by Black writers have been historically marginalized in the publishing industry. The goal of the BLK Bestsellers List is to showcase the nation’s bestselling books by Black writers and to ensure more visibility and sales.
The BLK Bestsellers List is a project initiated by the Black Book Accelerator (BBA), a dedicated volunteer leadership team—each member a seasoned publishing professional with decades of industry experience. The mission of this team is to “strengthen the Black book ecosystem and measurably increase overall stakeholder revenue.”
Published monthly, the BLK Bestseller list is one of the BBA’s flagship projects, born out of the understanding that discoverability is key. By creating a reliable and transparent bestseller list dedicated solely to Black writers, the BBA is reshaping how the publishing industry discovers and measures Black literature. I developed and manage the list as founder of the African American Literature Book Club (AALBC.com)—the oldest and most respected online platform dedicated to Black literature.
Each month, I process sales data from Circana BookScan (a BBA partner). Circana collects US print sales from thousands of retailers, including national and regional bookstore chains, independent bookstores, mass merchandisers, online retailers, supermarkets, and specialty retailers. More than 100,000 titles are pulled based on BISAC code, author, and subject. These titles are then matched against AALBC’s database of Black authors and grouped into eight categories: Adult Fiction Hardcover and Paperback; Adult Nonfiction Hardcover and Paperback; Juvenile Fiction and Nonfiction; Young Adult; and Poetry.
The titles are ranked by sales, and the top 20 books in each category are published at BLKBestsellers.com. An industry cut of the bestsellers list, going 50 books deep with sales data, will be made available to booksellers who report their sales data to Circana.
Transparency is key. When an author appears on the BLK Bestsellers List, their achievement is backed by verifiable sales data. Authors, booksellers, librarians, educators, and readers can trust the list as a true reflection of the marketplace. Given the nature of the data, mistakes are possible. We might rank a book that should not be included, or we may miss a book that should be included. We welcome these corrections.
The technology behind the BLK Bestsellers List:
- Circana BookScan Feeds: Monthly sales reports provide ISBN-level sales numbers, forming the foundation of the rankings.
- AALBC Database: A custom-built MySQL database integrates BookScan sales data with AALBC’s extensive author and book metadata.
- Automated Pipelines: Data is collated using Python scripts that filter raw sales to ensure only books by Black authors are counted, cross-referencing AALBC’s curated author directory.
- AI-Generated Log Lines: Monthly log lines summarizing the results are generated by ChatGPT, providing consistent, natural-language reporting.
- Dynamic Publishing: The list is rendered on BLKBestsellers.com using PHP, which serves category pages for fiction, nonfiction, children’s, and more. Each page is optimized with meta tags, schema markup, and SEO best practices to maximize discoverability.
- XML Feed: An XML feed is available, allowing bookstores, libraries, and other partners to integrate the BLK Bestsellers List directly into their own systems and catalogs.
The BLK Bestsellers List is the first of its kind—a fully transparent combination of industry-standard data and curated metadata. This framework could be replicated to highlight Latino, Indigenous, Asian American, LGBTQ+, or other underrepresented voices, giving each group a reliable way to measure and showcase their market impact.
The goal is to amplify the BLK Bestsellers List by partnering with a strong media partner. This effort continues. In the meantime, we are embedding the list across the publishing ecosystem, including:
- Edelweiss: The industry’s premier catalog and review tool highlights BLK Bestseller titles, helping librarians, reviewers, and booksellers prioritize them for acquisition and promotion.
- Libro.fm: Audiobook listeners browsing Libro.fm are introduced to BLK Bestsellers, connecting Black authors with an expanding digital audience.
- Bookshop.org: Online shoppers see which titles are BLK Bestsellers, boosting visibility and sales for Black authors.
- Ingram iPage: Titles that appear on the list are highlighted in the industry’s largest book distribution platform, seen by thousands of booksellers and librarians.
This ecosystem-wide integration ensures that Black authored bestsellers are not only recorded but promoted directly where buying decisions happen.
By connecting Black bookstores to reliable, transparent sales data, the BLK Bestsellers List strengthens the entire Black Book Ecosystem, which includes all publishing professionals between the author and the reader.
It ensures that Black authors have their commercial success recognized and celebrated, while making clear to publishers and distributors that these works are far from niche. Readers, educators, and librarians gain a trusted source for discovering the most impactful books by Black writers and future historians and cultural critics will inherit a record that guarantees the achievements of Black writers across the board.
The list has also been embraced by the National Association of Black Bookstores (NAB2). Of course, the list is useful to any bookseller as a guide to stocking decisions, but for Black-owned, mission-driven bookstores, the list is even more; it is validation and a powerful tool that supports their mission of uplifting Black voices.
While the BLK Bestsellers List is indeed groundbreaking, it faces challenges: 1) Circana BookScan does not capture every sale—particularly direct-to-consumer sales at author events or some small indie outlets—including AALBC. Still, because it is anchored in the most comprehensive retail data available, it remains the most accurate record of Black book sales to date. 2) Identifying the books to be included continues to be very challenging. 3) There is no field that identifies Black authors. In fact, some authors may not want to be identified as Black. 4) It would be beneficial to enlist a media partner to help amplify the list.
All these challenges/opportunities are being addressed on various levels with our trade partners. For example, the IBPA DEI Committee has put in scores of volunteer hours helping to create more “African American & Black” BISAC codes. While BISAC codes do not speak to an author’s ethnicity, it does describe a book’s subject matter, and this information is helpful in identifying books to consider.
The BBA team includes Peter Hildick-Smith, the president of Codex-Group LLC. His research has determined that despite the lack of a field to identify the author’s ethnicity, far more authors are willing to share this information than not.
The American Booksellers Association (ABA) is working to help increase the number of reporting stores. Circana has agreed to help AALBC report book sales directly.
Linda A. Duggins, a member of the BBA team, is a publicity publishing professional with over 25 years of experience and is working to help get exposure for the list. The NAB2 is also committed to using their resources to amplify the BLK Bestsellers list. We are confident the list will get the exposure it needs.
There is a great deal of excitement surrounding this project. The BLK Bestsellers List combines technology and cultural commitment—demonstrating how data transparency, paired with thoughtful curation, can transform the publishing industry for the better.
Troy D. Johnson is the president of the African American Literature Book Club (AALBC). His primary platform, AALBC.com, is the oldest, largest, and most frequently visited website dedicated to books by people of African descent. Johnson has 20 years of corporate experience in roles ranging from designing wide area networks to managing international projects for major corporations, including Goldman Sachs and Deutsche Bank. As an educator, he taught information systems and web design at Baruch College’s Zicklin School of Business.