Introducing Free Bundle Charts — A Bestseller List for What People are Really Reading

A reimagined bestseller list focused on what people read and comment online, not what bookstores buy.

  • Our lists include books and comics from self-published and trad authors.
  • Guest authors to give their book of the week recommendations.
By Javier Cabrera (Editor-in-chief), March 13, 2021

Today we officially launched Free Bundle Charts, a reimagined weekly bestseller list focused on which books are being read and commented the most, not which books have sold the most to bookstores.

From our newsletter:

Best-Seller lists have always been surrounded by scandals in the publishing industry, and they seldomly reflect people’s real choices and preferences when it comes to reading.

What makes our list different is we do not list books based solely on how many sales they had during the week but on the impact they had on us, the readers. Places like Reddit, Good Reads, and even Podcasts count towards a book’s position in our list.

This allows us to level up the playing field for books from self-published authors, big trade publishers, and small presses alike. It also allows us, the readers, to become directly involved in the selection process.

Key Free Bundle Charts features include:

What is really being read: Free Bundle Charts Top 5 Most Recommended is the first list of its kind to rank books and comics by their popularity – giving readers everywhere the opportunity to actually see what is being read and recommended online every week.

A diverse offer in fiction: Our Top 5 Most Recommended includes recommendations for books and comics from trade published authors (namely, part of the big 5, Hachette Book Group, HarperCollins, Macmillan, Penguin Group, Random House, and Simon & Schuster) and self-published authors alike, thus creating a more diverse and compelling offer in fiction.

Curated recommendations: Some of our Free Bundle Charts are being curated by famous authors and screenwriters.

Testing Phase

As a part of the launching campaign, we ask people online to help us calibrate our in-house artificial intelligence algorithm by posting their favorite book of the week.

If you want to join the test, simply Tweet a book you recommend this week, followed by the #FreeBundleCharts hashtag, as this reader did:

We will be running tests during the entire month to ensure a diverse and correct representation of titles in the U.S., and once that is secured, we will include aditional markets.