MyJottingz

Tim comments on the Lulu.com study which discovered that
"The life-expectancy of a bestselling novel has halved within the last decade.... It has fallen to barely a seventh of its level 40 years ago.... The average number of weeks that a new No. 1 bestseller stayed top of the hardback fiction section of the New York Times Bestseller List has fallen from 5.5 in the 1990s, 14 in the 1970s and 22 in the 1960s to barely a fortnight last year -- according to the study of the half-century from 1956-2005. In the 1960s, fewer than three novels reached No. 1 in an average year; last year, 23 did."

Does it mean that like the attention span of MTV generation, the average reader moves on to a new book much faster than his/her counterpart a few generations ago, and that it's easier now than ever before for an author to make it to the best seller list.

Another interesting observation is that none of the top 25 albums of all time were published after 2000, and only three of the top 100. But it later points out that this assertion breaks down badly with regard to movies, where seven of the top ten all time bestselling movies have come out since 2000.

About the movies they probably have not taken into consideration inflation while calculating production costs and ticket sales.
I remember years ago while in India, when the film Hum Aap Ke Hain Kaun came out, it was touted as the box office success of all time, but taking into consideration inflation it still could not beat Sholay especially since there was a difference of more than 100 rupees in their respective ticket prices. So the conclusions may not be all correct.