“Slouching” Book Sales, & You Should Read About a Woman Called “Toad”, &

MUST-READ: A Woman Called “Toad”:

For a clear-sighted appropriation of Classical Mediterranean civilization:

Phryne Fisher, Core Curricula, Cultural Appropriation, & Falling Victim to Victorian-Era Grifters

Reacting against:

Academia: Straight to the Core

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FOCUS ON: Slouching Towards Utopia Book Sales so Far:

Figuring out how many copies Slouching Towards Utopia <bit.ly/3pP3Krk> is actually selling in anything close to real time seems remarkably difficult. Amazon has a daily sales ranking. I took a snapshot of category best sellers. Amazon reports the following for categories “economics” and “macroeconomics”:

1. In economics, the book sales rank best seller is Benjamin Graham’s nearly fifty year-old classic The Intelligent Investor. Its sales rank is #403 in books. The 20th best-seller is the audible audiobook version of my Slouching Towards Utopia, which is rank #917 in audible; the book next to it is ranked #2177 in books (and the hardcover version of Slouching was at book rank #3859 when I took the snapshot).

2. In macroeconomics, the best seller is Ray Dalio’s Principles for Dealing with the Changing World Order: Why Nations Succeed and Fail, at book sales rank #619. The 20th best seller is the audible audiobook version of Nick Timiraos’s Trillion Dollar Triage: How Jay Powell and the Fed Battled a President and a Pandemic—and Prevented Economic Disaster, which has audible sales rank #9847. The book next to it has book sales rank #30340. The audio, hardback, and kindle version of Slouching appear on the macroeconomics chart at numbers 5, 8, and 13, with sales ranks (as of the snapshot) of #917 in audible, #3859 in books, and# 11729 in kindle, respecively.

What do these mean?

It appears that a sales rank of 1000 in audible is selling about the same number of copies (albeit in a different format) as is a sales rank of 2200 in books; a sales rank of 10000 in audible is about the same as a sales rank of 30000 in kindle. My guess, which is probably not correct, is that a kindle sales rank of X sells three times and a book sales rank of X sells 2.2 times as many books as does an audible sales rank of X.

My other guess is that the actual number of hardcover books being sold on a day, all channels, is—in the range I am playing in—roughly 130000/[book sales rank]: selling 1000 hardcover copies a day at a book sales rank of 130, and 50 copies a day at the current, as of this moment, book sales rank of 2600. Perhaps all-format sales, including overseas, are twice U.S hardcover sales—but that will change over time: Amazon right now is selling more of my audiobook than my hardback.

And these are just my guesses…

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Amazon Best Sellers: Best Economics:

1. Benjamin Graham: The Intelligent Investor (book rank 403)

2. Ray Dalio: Principles for Dealing with the Changing World Order: Why Nations Succeed and Fail (hardback) (book 619)

3. Sun Tzu: The Art of War

4. Michael Shellenberger: San Fran-Sicko: How Progressives Ruin Cities

5. Ray Dalio: Principles for Dealing with the Changing World Order: Why Nations Succeed and Fail (audiobook)

6. Ramit Sethi: I Will Teach You to Be Rich (audiobook)

7. Chris Miller: Chip War: The Fight for the World's Most Critical Technology (hardback)

8. Nouriel Roubini: Megathreats: Ten Dangerous Trends That Imperil Our Future and How to Survive Them (hardback)

9. Peter Zeihan: The End of the World Is Just Beginning: Mapping the Collapse of Globalization (hardback)

10. Scott Gallaway: Adrift: America in 100 Charts (hardback)

11. Mike Michalowicz: Profit First: Transform Your Business from a Cash-Eating Monster to a Money-Making Machine (hardback)

12. Dave Ramsey: Baby Steps Millionaire (hardback)

13. Joseph Sassoon: The Sassoons: The Great Global Merchants and the Making of an Empire (hardback)

14. Daniel Miller: The LLC Bible (audiobook)

15. G. Edward Griffin: The Creature from Jekyll Island: A Second Look at the Federal Reserve (audiobook)

16. Nouriel Roubini: Megathreats: Ten Dangerous Trends That Imperil Our Future and How to Survive Them (audiobook)

17. Henry Hazlitt: Economics in One Lesson: THe Shortest and Surest Way to Understand Basic Economics (paperback)

18. Peter Thiel: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future (hardback)

19. Walt Bogdanich: When McKinsey Comes to Town: The Hidden Influence of the World's Most Powerful Consulting Firm (hardback) (book rank 2177)

20. J. Bradford DeLong: Slouching Towards Utopia: An Economic History of the Twentieth Century (audiobook) (audible rank 917)

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Amazon Best Sellers: Best Macroeconomics:

1. Ray Dalio: Principles for Dealing with the Changing World Order: Why Nations Succeed and Fail (hardback) (book rank 619)

2. Ray Dalio: Principles for Dealing with the Changing World Order: Why Nations Succeed and Fail (audiobook)

3. Nouriel Roubini: Megathreats: Ten angerous Trends That Imperil Our Future and How to Survive Them (hardback)

4. Nouriel Roubini: Megathreats: Ten angerous Trends That Imperil Our Future and How to Survive Them (audiobook)

5. J. Bradford DeLong: Slouching Towards Utopia: An Economic History of the Twentieth Century (audiobook) (audible rank 917)

6. Jonathan Bier: Reckless: The Story of Cryptocurrency Interest Rates (paperback)

7. Nouriel Roubini: Megathreats: Ten Dangerous Trends That Imperil Our Future and How to Survive Them (hardback)

8. J. Bradford DeLong: Slouching Towards Utopia: An Economic History of the Twentieth Century (hardback) (book rank , 3859)

9. Ray Dalio: Principles for Dealing with the Changing World Order: Why Nations Succeed and Fail (kindle)

10. Joseph Wang: Central Banking 101 (paperback)

11. Kevin J. Hassett: The Drift: Stopping America's Slide to Socialism (hardback)

12. James Dale Davidson and William Rees-Mogg: The Sovereign Individual: Mastering the Transition to the Information Age (audiobook)

13. J. Bradford DeLong: Slouching Towards Utopia: An Economic History of the Twentieth Century (kindle) (kindle sales rank 11729)

14. James Dale Davidson and William Rees-Mogg: The Sovereign Individual: Mastering the Transition to the Information Age (paperback)

15. Joseph Wang: Central Banking 101 (kindle)

16. Raul Luna: Capitalizate Con Bienes Raices (paperback)

17. Saifedean Ammous: The Fiat Standard: The Debt Slavery Alternative to Human Civilization (audiobook)

18. Howard Yaruss: Understandable Economics (hardback) (book sales rank 22772)

19. Kevin J. Hassett: The Drift: Stopping America's Slide to Socialism (kindle) (kindle sales rank 30340)

20. Nick Timiraos: Trillion Dollar Triage: How Jay Powell and the Fed Battled a President and a Pandemic—and Prevented Economic Disaster (audiobook) (audible sales rank 9847)

I would be curious: anybody feel like reading all of these books, and then writing about what the books say and what that tells us about the zeitgeist? (I have read Timiraos, Dalio, Roubini, Hazlitt, Miller, Tzu, and Graham. I probably should—but don’t see when I will find time—read the others).

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RECENT COMMENTARY ON SLOUCHING:

• Nick S.: At Unfogged: ‘One of the things that struck me… was that it is a different book for different readers, and I'm curious to hear what book other people are reading…

• Timothy Burke: The Read: Brad DeLong, Slouching Towards Utopia: An Economic History of the Twentieth Century; and a response A Semi-Platonic Dialogue on “Slouching Towards Utopia” with Timothy Burke: ‘He has given me the best of all presents for a professor: a serious engagement starting from a very different point of view…

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