Nigeria’s publishing industry continues to operate without a regular weekly or monthly bestseller list, leaving authors, publishers and booksellers without a central source of sales data.
The gap means that even in a large market, there is no concrete information on how many copies the country’s bestselling books are moving. Publishers have also been encouraged to invest in education and literacy initiatives to build future readership.
A long-running data gap#
Bestseller lists in other markets serve as marketing tools for publishers and provide signals about where demand is heading. For authors, they can create visibility, credibility and leverage in negotiating higher advances.
In Nigeria, no official list collates bestselling books weekly and ranks them by sales. The absence has been described as a long-running omission in the publishing industry.
What a regular list could offer#
A weekly or monthly list, collated over time, would give a more comprehensive picture of sales figures at the end of each year. By tracking week-by-week or month-by-month data, stakeholders could reasonably estimate how many copies a book sold.
Such a list could also support a phrase like ‘No. 1 on a national bestseller list’ on books published in Nigeria, similar to the weight carried by bestseller labels in the United States and the United Kingdom. The bestseller label can also carry social and psychological weight, based on publishing and marketing rather than writing quality.
Collecting data on reader preferences can provide leverage for stakeholders, even though it is difficult to predict which books readers will buy.
Annual RovingHeights data#
An annual list based on sales data from RovingHeights, described as Nigeria’s largest bookstore, offers a partial view. The 2025 edition showed that billionaire Femi Otedola’s memoir Making it Big: Lessons from a Life in Business sold more than 8,000 copies, the highest single-book total since the list began.
- Femi Otedola, Making it Big: Lessons from a Life in Business: more than 8,000 copies
- Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Dream Count: more than 4,000 copies
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s novel Dream Count placed second with more than 4,000 copies sold. The compilers noted: ‘The only bigger winner is the publisher of those two books: Narrative Landscape Press, the first press to claim the Top 2 spots.’
The same compilers said the data has limits because Nigerian publishers tend to sell more copies directly than through bookstores. They added that Narrative Landscape Press ‘also released and primarily sold another bestseller in Chude Jideonwo’s How Depression Saved My Life.’
Online speculation earlier this year suggested Dream Count, Adichie’s first novel in 12 years, may have sold more than 15,000 copies, with some estimates above 25,000. Such estimates are possible because the publishing ecosystem does not share comprehensive sales data.
Fatima Bala appears to dominate fiction sales this year; the next annual RovingHeights list is expected to show more.
Transparency and manipulation risks#
A bestseller list in Nigeria would depend on stakeholders such as publishers, bookstores, authors and Nigeria’s National Archives willingly sharing sales information. If they do, the list could be relatively comprehensive and credible. If any withhold data, the list becomes partial or nonexistent.
Transparency can also be gamed. Bestseller lists can be tailored to suit a publisher’s agenda, and sales data can be skewed to favour certain books or genres. Amazon bestseller lists, for example, can be influenced by selecting less competitive categories where fewer sales are needed to reach a bestseller spot.
