Longsellers
Under long sellers to cultural products, which constantly sell over longer periods understands. The term is in contrast to bestsellers , of which large numbers are sold within a short period of time.
In the case of longsellers, a distinction must be made between top longsellers, which sell well immediately after they appear and, seen over the years, are constantly being bought; these include the so-called classics in the music sector such as Miles Davis ' Kind of Blue (Jazz), The Beatles ' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band , Pink Floyds The Wall , Nirvanas Nevermind and similar. Then there are the longsellers, which only develop into such over time and eventually become classics of their genre, such as B. Pavlov's Dog Pampered Menial , all Bob Dylan records or older records from superstars.
In the case of books, it is often reference works and specialist books that have continued success and are regarded as standard works . Examples of this are the Duden Dictionary and the Pschyrembel Clinical Dictionary . In the field of fiction, it is mostly classic editions and school reading material, but also “timeless” works such as texts by Karl May , Arthur Conan Doyle , Umberto Eco or Alexandre Dumas . A remake can often turn a long seller into a (short-term) bestseller.
Longseller of the early 20th century
According to statistics from 1938, the following German literary works achieved a circulation of more than 500,000 copies by 1938:
- 860,000 copies - Richard Voss : Zwei Menschen , 1891
- 770,000 copies - Waldemar Bonsels : Maya the Bee and Her Adventures , 1912
- 677,000 copies - Ludwig Ganghofer : Hubertus Palace , 1895
- 615,000 copies - Felix Dahn : A Battle for Rome , 1876
- 583,000 copies - Rudolf Herzog : Die Wiskottens , 1905
- 573,000 copies - Paul Keller : Die Heimat , 1903
- 525,000 copies - Rudolf G. Binding : The Passage of Sacrifice , 1912
- 504,000 copies - Hermann Löns : Der Wehrwolf , 1910
- 500,000 copies - Rainer Maria Rilke : The way of love and death of the cornet Christoph Rilke , 1906
- 500,000 copies - Felicitas Rose : Heideschulmeister Uwe Karsten , 1909
- 500,000 copies - Walter Flex : The Wanderer Between Both Worlds , 1916
Individual evidence
- ↑ after Reinhard Wittmann: History of the book trade at a glance. 2nd Edition. Beck, Munich 1999, ISBN 3-406-42104-0 , p. 378