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Sarah's Bookshelves Live

Bonus Episode: Behind the Scenes of Amazon’s Best Books of 2024 List with Al Woodworth, Senior Editor & Manager of Amazon Books Editorial

Sarah's Bookshelves Live

Sarah Dickinson

Bookrecommendations, Bookpodcasts, Sarahsbookshelvespodcast, Sarahsbookshelveslivepodcast, Sarahsbookshelveslive, Bookpodcast, Literarypodcast, Whatshouldiread, Arts, Bookreviewpodcast, Reading, Readingpodcast, Books, Sarahsbookshelves

4.9 • 732 Ratings

🗓️ 4 December 2024

⏱️ 47 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In this Bonus Podcast Episode, Al Woodworth, Senior Editor and Manager at Amazon Books Editorial, returns to the show to take listeners behind the scenes of Amazon’s Best Books of 2024, as chosen by the Amazon Editors!  A fascinating glimpse into how the 2024 list was curated, how the rankings were determined, and what criteria guided the selections. 

This post contains affiliate links through which I make a small commission when you make a purchase (at no cost to you!).

CLICK HERE for the full episode Show Notes on the blog.

Announcements

  • My 2025 Reading Tracker is out! Plus, this year we’ve added another option — a LITE Tracker. Once again, the Tracker is ONLY available to Superstars patrons (i.e., no longer available as a separate purchase for $14.99 here on my website). Also, to avoid Apple’s 30% fee, be sure to join directly from Patreon’s site, mobile or desktop. Become a Superstars Patron here!

Highlights

  • The impact Amazon’s #1 book of 2024 had on the editorial team
  • The role of capturing “the present moment” in selecting the best books of the year
  • How Amazon Editorial chose the top 5 books of 2024 
  • Whether the mid-year top book or other outlets’ year-end lists influenced Amazon’s decisions
  • Behind the scenes: 2024’s “reading week” retreat and “war room” discussions 
  • The importance of selecting books that appeal across genres and to a broad swath of readers
  • The group dynamic of ranking each book on the list
  • Al highlights some lesser-known titles from the list
  • How 2024 stacks up for Al and Amazon’s editorial team

Books From Our Discussion

Other Links

About Al Woodworth

More about Amazon Book Review
Website | Instagram | X | Facebook

Al Woodworth is a Senior Editor on the Amazon Books Editorial team and has spent more than ten years in the book industry, championing authors and their work. She’s never without a book or four in her bag and is happiest reading memoirs and literary fiction, especially sprawling stories that cross generations and countries. She lives in Brooklyn.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

Welcome to Sarah's Bookshelves Live. I'm your host, Sarah Dickinson. Join me every other week as we get real, and sometimes a bit snarky about books and reading. Let's get rolling.

0:23.1

Surprise. This was supposed to be an off week for the podcast, but we got a fantastic opportunity

0:28.1

that I didn't want to pass up. Amazon's best books of 2024 list came out a few weeks ago,

0:33.6

and there was lots of chatter about it, at least in my DMs. So when we were offered the

0:38.8

opportunity to have someone from Amazon on the podcast to talk about this particular list,

0:43.6

I jumped at the chance. And I specifically wanted Al Woodworth, senior editor and manager

0:48.9

of Amazon Books editorial, since she was such a great guest when she came on the show back

0:52.7

in September. So I'm thrilled

0:54.6

to welcome Al back to the show today. And in case you missed our last episode with Al, she has spent

0:59.8

more than 10 years in the book industry. She's never without a book or four in her bag and his happiest

1:05.0

reading memoirs and literary fiction, especially sprawling stories that cross generations and countries.

1:10.3

And she lives in Brooklyn.

1:11.7

Welcome back, Al. Oh, thanks so much for having me. Excited to be here with you guys and talk about

1:16.0

books. In our September episode, we went behind the scenes of Amazon editorial and how they put

1:22.0

together their many best books lists throughout the year. That was a much broader and more high-level

1:27.2

discussion than we're

1:28.1

going to have today. So if you haven't listened to that episode yet, I highly recommend listening

1:32.3

to the interview portion of that before listening to today's episode. And that was episode 178,

1:38.2

and it aired on September 18th. The most interesting feedback I got coming out of that episode

1:43.3

was that a decent number of listeners

1:45.0

were actually surprised to hear that Amazon's best books lists are put together by real live

1:50.3

book editors and are driven by that team's choices rather than by algorithms or sales data.

...

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