Monograph Sales & Rankings

What it is

Monograph sales are figures that record the number of times a single-subject book (monograph) has been purchased. Monograph rankings are a metric derived from sales information that contextualizes how well a book is selling in comparison to other books, often within the same genre.

How it works

Monograph sales and rankings are not a direct measure of readership, research quality, or impact. However, book sales and rankings can be used to suggest popular attention to a work, as sales can be an indicator of broad consumer interest.

To calculate sales and rankings, point-of-sale data is collected from book retailers. Authors can access their sales data via Amazon, and figures are provided by NPD BookScan. Additionally, Amazon sales rank data is available from Sales Rank Express.

What to keep in mind

Detailed, complete, and historical sales information about monograph sales can be difficult to obtain. Even the most comprehensive sources are limited to the recent past. The most renowned data source for book sales (NPD BookScan) only covers approximately 85% of print trade book sales and only in the U.S. Book sales data and ranking calculations are also often proprietary, and purchaser data is anonymous, both of which limit further analysis.

Monograph sales and rankings do not necessarily include sales to libraries and do not include after-market sales (selling of used copies), both of which may be significant. Many academic books, for instance, are primarily purchased by research and university libraries, and are sold at high price points that deter individual consumer purchase. Thus while the number of copies sold to individual consumers may be relatively low, the actual audience for an academic work can still be quite large when considering access by library users. Likewise sales and rankings do not account for trends in scholarly publishing like Open Access monographs, in which authors choose to make all or part of their books freely available on the Internet, sometimes simultaneous with their sale in a print format.

Learn more

  • Esposito, J. J. & Barch, K. (10 February 2017). Monograph Output of American University Presses, 2009-2013. Scholarly Kitchen. Online report.
  • Snijder, R. (2019). The Deliverance of Open Access Books. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press. https://library.oapen.org/handle/20.500.12657/25287

Monograph Holdings Amazon Ratings and Reviews

Last updated April 2022