'Steve Jobs' Tops Amazon's List of Best-Selling Print and Kindle Books for 2011

Last week, we noted that Walter Isaacson's authorized biography of Steve Jobs had become Amazon's top-selling book of 2011, a feat all the more notable due to the fact that the book was not released until late October. 

But that ranking only encompassed print sales, and with digital books now representing amajority of book sales at Amazon, rankings including Kindle e-book sales need to be included in order to generate a more complete picture of overall book sales. 


Amazon has done just that today, releasing its list of best-selling books of 2011, and Isaacson's Steve Jobs once again topped the list.

“After the year of recommending books to our customers, it’s always fun to see what books really resonated with them,” said Chris Schluep, Senior Editor of Books, Amazon.com. “We chose ‘Steve Jobs’ as one of the Top 10 best books of the year, and even though it was published in October, the sales have been phenomenal in both formats. And we’re really excited that Kindle Direct Publishing authors have taken two of the top spots this year for book sales overall.” 

The top 10 best-selling books overall are: 

1. “Steve Jobs” by Walter Isaacson 
2. “Bossypants” by Tina Fey 
3. “A Stolen Life” by Jaycee Dugard 
4. “The Mill River Recluse” by Darcie Chan 
5. “In the Garden of the Beasts” by Erik Larson 
6. “A Dance with Dragons” by George R.R. Martin 
7. “The Paris Wife” by Paula McLain 
8. “The Litigators” by John Grisham 
9. “The Abbey” by Chris Culver 
10. “Inheritance (The Inheritance Cycle)” by Christopher Paolini

Amazon's list includes all books that were published as first editions in 2011 and includes only paid sales. Highlighting the growing influence of digital books and their impact on publishing, Amazon notes that both The Mill River Recluse (#4) and The Abbey (#9) are independently-published books made available only via Kindle e-book.