By Lori Perkins
Romance readers were shocked Monday morning when they looked for the weekly listing of best-selling books to find that the list was not there.
Over the weekend, USA Today’s parent company, Gannett, had laid off a significant number of employees, including the editor who had compiled the weekly bestseller list, Mary Cadden, who had worked on the list for 15 years, and for Gannett for 26. According to an article in the Associated Press, “USA Today's Books list will be on hiatus for the remainder of the year. We will share further updates in 2023.”
The weekly USA Today bestseller list compiled sales of hardcover, paperback and e-books from national outlets, including independent bookstores and online retailers, to put together a list of 150 bestselling books a week. Authors, especially romance writers, loved USA Today's list which was often more genre-based than lists from The New York Times and other sources.
Sarah MacLean, a bestselling romance novelist noticed the absence of the list on Twitter Monday morning.
She told the Associated Press, “You get a broader view of the publishing industry and what people are reading,” said MacLean, whose books — most recently, “Heartbreaker” in early September — have frequently appeared on the USA Today list. “For a genre like mine, which is often forgotten, the USA Today list was invaluable.”