As Oprah prepares to sign off from her daily talk show for good, The Nielsen Company takes a look at Oprah’s Book Club selections from the past 10 years.

While its undeniable that Oprah’s Book Club delivered mega-sales for its selections, it can be hard to track officially as all editions might have benefited (not just the Oprah edition), including used copies. However, there are some titles that catapulted to bestseller lists following Oprah’s nod. These include:

Oprah Pick #63 (September 17, 2009): “Say You’re One of Them” by Uwem Akpan (Hachette)

While the trade paperback and hardcover editions sold just 47,500 units together, the Oprah trade paperback sold a whopping 405,000 units—an 853 percent increase.

Oprah Pick #62 (September 18, 2008): “The Story of Edgar Sawtelle” by David Wroblewski (Ecco)

According to Oprah.com, Oprah compares this book to classics by John Steinbeck and Harper Lee’s “To Kill a Mockingbird.” Sales nearly tripled (770,000 paperbacks) after being named to Oprah’s Book Club.

Oprah Pick #57 (May 28, 2007): The Road by Cormac McCarthy (Random House – Knopf/Vintage)

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize and named to Oprah’s Book Club in 2007, this title became a movie in 2009, so it’s no surprise that the book has sold more than 1.5 million copies in total.  However, P.O. (pre-Oprah), “The Road” sold just 156,000 units (178,000 copies of the hardcover edition to date); the Oprah trade paperback edition has sold a whopping 1.4 million units.

Oprah Pick #54 (September 22, 2005): “A Million Little Pieces” by James Frey (Random House – Nan A. Talese/Anchor)

Perhaps the most famous and controversial of Oprah’s picks, “A Million Little Pieces” was that autobiography that wasn’t.  Still, Oprah’s magic worked wonders.  The Oprah trade paperback edition of “A Million Little Pieces” sold a stunning 2.7 million units, while the hardcover had sold 149,500.

*All figures have been rounded to the nearest hundred.

*Source: Nielsen BookScan

*Nielsen BookScan’s US Consumer Market Panel currently covers approximately 75% of retail sales and continues to grow. BookScan does not track sales from Wal-Mart/Sam’s Club.

Download Nielsen’s top 10s and trends in the U.S. for 2010.

Online buzz for Harry Potter in general has seen spikes around the movie trailer and impending opening of the movie.

First Film Drives Biggest Spike
During the four weeks following the November 2001 big screen debut of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, sales of the corresponding book more than tripled over the previous four weeks to 956,700 units. 223,200 Sorcerer’s Stone books were sold in the week of the movie’s debut alone. The excitement carried over to the entire series, with all four books then out seeing a sizeable increase in sales.

The most recent Harry Hollywood incarnation, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, had a less dramatic effect on the book brand at its July 2009 box office debut. All Harry Potter books saw an uptick in sales but on a lower scale: Half-Blood Prince sold 50,400 units the four weeks following the movie’s debut, compared to the 33,800 books purchased the four weeks prior.

2010 and Beyond?

The Harry Potter films demonstrate the close relationship between book and movie sales. A hugely popular book creates a ready market for an adapted film.  At the same time, movies can have a dramatic effect on the sales of their book counterparts. However the scale of impact of film adaptations on book sales and their ability to introduce new readers to the book series can diminish over time as a film series draws to an end.

“While the literary world is often the source of creative content for Hollywood, the relationship is reciprocal, as we often see Hollywood releases boosting book sales,” said Jonathan Nowell, President, Nielsen Book.

Eat, Pray, Love has seen a rise in book sales, with 94,000 units sold in the week ending in August 1 alone, the same number of total units sold for the entire 2006 year, when the book was first published. So far, in 2010, the book has sold more than twice as many copies as all of 2009.

Last year, the book-to-movie bounce was seen most notably with “Julie & Julia,” which helped drives sales not only for Julie Powell’s Julie & Julia, but also the Julia Child cookbooks that were Powell’s inspiration.

Other book-to-movie titles with a strong appeal to women have also seen a lift, despite a reduced media and box office profile. The February 2010 release of Dear John by Nicholas Sparks, author of other shelf-to-screen hits including The Notebook, sparked an uptick in book sales, contributing to over 1 million units sold during the 2010 year-to-date, nearly half of the book’s 2.4 million total sales. My Sister’s Keeper by Jodi Picoult made its silver screen debut in June 2009, five years after its original publication run. This novel also achieved its highest weekly sales number during the week of the film’s release with 81,000 units sold.

Based on the books My Life in France by Julia Child and Julie and Julia by Julie Powell, the film version Julie & Julia has helped boost book sales of all three titles from year-over-year. Originally published in 1961, Mastering the Art of French Cooking was a relatively low-key title with hardcover sales hovering around 10,000 units for the past few years, but sales have now skyrocketed to 158,000 units year-to-date. The combined paperback and hardcover sales of My Life in France and Julie and Julia also took dramatic leaps, 40,000 units sold last year to 264,000 in 2009 and 17,000 to 336,000, respectively.

Released in August, Julie & Julia ranked number #2 at the box office during its opening weekend grossing $20 million, and has increased its domestic total to $90.6 million and counting.

Overall cookbook sales are also on the rise as the genre is up nearly 9 percent year-over-year with 8.2 million units sold in 2008 to just over 9 million this year.

Sales by U.S. Market
The top ten markets based on year-to-date sales of “Mastering the Art of French Cooking” account for 40% of the title’s total with sales in New York and Los Angeles, the nation’s top two book markets, making up 16% of that tally.

While sales of the cookbook were up in all markets, the three markets with the largest year-over-year percent increase include Shreveport, Flint-Saginaw-Bay City and Wilkes-Barre-Scranton.

As the sixth movie in the Harry Potter franchise, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, is released this week, The Nielsen Company has prepared an overview of the impact of the two series across media.

Book Sales*

*Includes all formats of the book (i.e. hardcover, paperback, audio, etc.). Does not include sales prior to BookScan launch Janaury 2001.

Box Office

The first movie in the Harry Potter series, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, opened on 11/16/01 bringing in $90.1 million in its opening weekend, and going on to haul in a total of $317.6 million domestically. The most recent release, 2007’s Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, had the largest opening day total of the series with $44.2 million on Wednesday 7/11/07. With each movie in the series debuting at #1 on its opening weekend and raking in $200+ million in the U.S, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince has some pretty big goblets to fill.


Twilight has also proved popular among moviegoers as the first installment of the series took in $69.9 million and the top spot at the box office in its opening weekend and a domestic total of $191.4 million.

Soundtrack

Although both franchises include big-budget theatrical releases, the style of their soundtracks is worlds apart. The Harry Potter soundtracks play more like the movie’s score with noted composer John Williams authoring the first three soundtracks in the series which have combined album sales of over a million copies to-date. Twilight’s soundtrack includes a compilation of songs performed by popular artists – film’s star Robert Pattinson even recorded an original track – and has sold just over 2.1 million copies since its release.

Television

So far this year Harry Potter movies have aired a total of 33 times on cable nets ABC Family, Disney Channel, HBO and Cinemax with ABC Family claiming four out of the five most-watched telecasts.

Online Buzz

Buzz tracking the two franchises shows that Harry Potter still dominates buzz, even amid the week where the Twilight movie is making its debut in the fall of 2008. [click to enlarge buzz graph]

Already this year, Nielsen witnessed significant year-over-year (ending September 2008) growth in online activities with increases in time spent daily on videos (+46%), blogs (+20%), and e-commerce sites (+17%).

Expect this trend to continue, as well as increases in newer in-home entertainment options such as video vending.

But don’t expect more time spent at home to trigger increased book sales.

Technology-driven gadgets, gizmos, and games will dominate spare-time activities, while U.S. book sales will remain essentially flat, with a modest 1.5% unit growth rate.

Look for a rise, however, in self-help books, as out-of-work consumers look to rediscover themselves.

Read Nielsen’s complete 2009 Industry Outlook in “Consumer Insight.”

View the latest issue of “Consumer Insight.”

The results are based on a Nielsen Online survey, conducted November 6-11, intended to gauge online consumers’ holiday shopping plans for 2008.

Top 10 Reasons to Shop Online (U.S.)

Holiday Gift Dollars Shifting Online

Survey results indicate that holiday gift budgets are shifting online. Respondents said that they would spend an increased percent of their holiday shopping budget online, an average of 41 percent compared to 39 percent last year. And more respondents indicated that they would spend the majority of their holiday gift budgets online, up to 36 percent from 32 percent a year ago.

Prospects For Growth

More consumers plan to make purchases in the “Toys & Video Games” and “Books” categories this holiday season than last. The top three retailers when ranked by the year-over-year increase in respondents intending to shop there this season were: Amazon, Wal-Mart and Barnes & Noble.

“We believe holiday online sales will grow from 2007, but likely at a single-digit rate and representing the smallest increase we’ve seen since the online commerce market was born,” said Ken Cassar, vice president of industry insights, Nielsen Online. “If there is a silver lining, it is that consumers continue to view the online channel’s principal value proposition as convenience, more than price, allowing retailers the opportunity to differentiate on service and selection.”

Black Friday And Beyond

Throughout the upcoming holiday shopping season, which officially commences with Black Friday on Nov. 28, Nielsen Online will report weekly – and, in some cases, daily – online audience data for top online shopping destinations as well as for its annual Holiday eShopping Index.

Download Nielsen Online’s full press release.

So far in 2008, four books published by Sen. Barack Obama between 2004 and fall 2008 have sold a combined 912,000 copies, according to Nielsen BookScan. 

In comparison, Sen. John McCain’s five titles, published between 1999 and summer 2008, have sold a total of 116,000 copies — almost 800,000 copies less than Obama.

Between January and September 21, 2008, McCain’s top selling book, “Faith of My Fathers,” sold 73,000 copies in hardcover, paperback, and audio editions. 

Obama’s top book, “The Audacity of Hope,” out-sold McCain’s title by 639% during the same period, according to Nielsen, with sales of 540,000 copies in hardcover, paperback, audio, and Spanish language editions.