Case Study: Trends from Amazon Bestsellers

Introduction

The following is a case study investigating bestelling books on Amazon between the years 2009 and 2019. We will look at how authors/publishers can use the trends in this data to set long-term goals.

Contents

• Summary
  • Tools and Techniques
  • Recommendations
• Guiding Questions
• Prepare Data
• Process Data
• Analysis
• References
• Contact

Summary

It's no secret that Amazon has become a behemoth of an organization, but it started out by starting selling books. And by the end of the time period for this data set (2019), Amazon enjoys a 50% share of all book distribution and an eBook market share around 67% (source). For writers and publishers around the world, it's hard to ignore Amazon's success and it seems unwise to consider not publishing to the platform.

This case study will investgiate the top 50 bestselling authors and books over the ten year period from 2009-2019. The goal is to provide insights so writers and publishers can make data-informed decisions about long-term goals.

Guiding Questions

For this case study, our main guiding question is:

How can trends from the Top 50 Amazon Bestsellers over a 10-year period inform long-term goals for authors and publishers?

To address this question, we will be exploring the answering the following sub questions:

• What author(s) published the most between 2009-2019?
• What percentage of books were fiction vs. non-fiction?
• What book appears the most between 2009-2019?

Tools and Techniques

This analysis made use of the following tools and techniques:

• Python programming language and libraries; pandas, seaborn, numpy, and matplotlib
• Data transformations: extraction, visualizations, summary statistics
• Data inspection: removal of duplicate/unnessary data, change format/datatype, verify unique values

Recommendations

The analysis yielded the following key observations:

• Most authors (75%) only published twice during this 10-year period
• A majority (73%) of the expensive books (books priced greater than 16 USD) were non-fiction
• most books (75%) published during this 10-year period were under 16 USD and 50% of them were priced between 7 USD and 16 USD

These observations led to the following recommendations outlined below.

Focus on high quality content

Most authors (75%) only published twice during this 10-year period. It takes a lot to publish a book -- drafting, writing, editing, and revising. This would seem to indicate that for those authors who made it into the Top 50 bestsellers list their book was most likely well-received because it was well-written.

For writers/publishers, seeking to make it on these lists in the next ten years this means focusing on writing less and writing better. By slowing down to focus on higher quality content it increases your chance of your book being received well and popular.

For higher priced books, focus on non-fiction

A majority (73%) of the expensive books (books priced greater than 16 USD) were non-fiction. Being that non-fiction books generally require more research and effort to write, it make sense that they would be priced higher to reflect that. For authors/publishers seeking earn more, they might consider shifting their output to non-fiction books. This could be more lucrative if combined with other sources of incomes such speaking engagements, workshops, courses, etc.

Set price between 7 and 16 USD

This is likely to change due to inflation and increase production costs, but it should be noted that most books (75%) published during this 10-year period were under 16 USD and 50% of them were priced in this range. In other words, when choosing the book price ensure that it is within the current range of book prices -- not too high, but not too low.

Guiding Questions

For this case study, our main guiding question is:

How can trends from the Top 50 Amazon Bestsellers over a 10-year period inform long-term goals for authors and publishers?

To address this question, we will be exploring the answering the following sub questions:

• What author(s) published the most between 2009-2019?
• What percentage of books were fiction vs. non-fiction?
• What book appears the most between 2009-2019?

Prepare Data

Dataset

The data we'll be working with is the Amazon Top 50 Bestselling Books 2009 - 2019 provided by Scooter Saalu on Kaggle.

Description

The dataset contains Amazon's Top 50 bestselling books from 2009 to 2019. There are 550 books with the data being categorized into fiction and non-fiction using Goodreads.

The data contains the following columns:

• Name: Name of the book (i.e., book title)
• Author: Name of the person/organization who wrote/published the book
• User rating: Average user rating on a scale of 1 to 5 in a given year
• Reviews: The total number of reviews the book received in a given
• Year: The year the book appeared on the bestseller list
• Price: The list price of the book in a given year

License

The data is made available to use via the CC0: Public Domain license which allows anyone to "copy, modify, distribute and perform the work, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission".

Process Data

Let's import our libraries and start processing our data. We will look for the following abnormalities:

• Check for missing values
• Investigate outliers
• Confirm data types

import numpy as np
import pandas as pd
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import seaborn as sns

Quick overview

df = pd.read_csv('amazon_bestsellers_2009-2019.csv')

df.shape

(550, 7)

df.head()

	Name	Author	User Rating	Reviews	Price	Year	Genre
0	10-Day Green Smoothie Cleanse	JJ Smith	4.7	17350	8	2016	Non Fiction
1	11/22/63: A Novel	Stephen King	4.6	2052	22	2011	Fiction
2	12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos	Jordan B. Peterson	4.7	18979	15	2018	Non Fiction
3	1984 (Signet Classics)	George Orwell	4.7	21424	6	2017	Fiction
4	5,000 Awesome Facts (About Everything!) (Natio...	National Geographic Kids	4.8	7665	12	2019	Non Fiction

df.describe()

	User Rating	Reviews	Price	Year
count	550.000000	550.000000	550.000000	550.000000
mean	4.618364	11953.281818	13.100000	2014.000000
std	0.226980	11731.132017	10.842262	3.165156
min	3.300000	37.000000	0.000000	2009.000000
25%	4.500000	4058.000000	7.000000	2011.000000
50%	4.700000	8580.000000	11.000000	2014.000000
75%	4.800000	17253.250000	16.000000	2017.000000
max	4.900000	87841.000000	105.000000	2019.000000

Check for missing values

df.isnull().sum()

Name           0
Author         0
User Rating    0
Reviews        0
Price          0
Year           0
Genre          0
dtype: int64

Observations

No missing values found.

Investigate outliers

columns_to_plot = ['User Rating', 'Reviews', 'Price', 'Year']
for column_name in columns_to_plot:
    plt.boxplot(df[column_name])
    plt.title('Box Plot:' + column_name)
    plt.xlabel(column_name)
    plt.ylabel('Value')
    plt.show()

Observations

Price, User Ratings, and Reviews have outliers. However, this is to be expected since there would be variablity in book prices as well as the number of ratings and reviews a book receives. Further, the outliers presented in the data do not seem unreasonable given the context of the data.

Confirm data types

df.dtypes

Name            object
Author          object
User Rating    float64
Reviews          int64
Price            int64
Year             int64
Genre           object
dtype: object

Observations

No abnormal data types.

Process Conlcusions

• No missing values; contains 550 entries (as described in the source)
• The max and min of the year matches what is the data description
• The data types for each column match what is described (i.e., numbers are numbers, categorical data are objects/strings)

Analysis

Correlation Heatmap

correlation_matrix = df[['User Rating', 'Price', 'Reviews', 'Year']].corr()

plt.figure(figsize=(10,8))

sns.heatmap(correlation_matrix, annot=True, cmap='coolwarm')

plt.title('Correlation Heatmap')

plt.show()

Observations

Little or no correllation between User Rating, Price, and Reviews.

Genre

genre = df["Genre"].value_counts()
print(genre)

percent_non_fic = round(((genre['Non Fiction'] / 550) * 100))
percent_fic = round(((genre['Fiction'] / 550) * 100))

sizes = [percent_non_fic, percent_fic]
labels = ['Non Fiction', 'Fiction']

plt.pie(sizes, labels=labels, autopct='%1.1f%%', startangle=140)
plt.axis('equal')
plt.title('Genre')
plt.show()

Non Fiction    310
Fiction        240
Name: Genre, dtype: int64

sns.countplot(x='Genre', data=df)
 
plt.xticks(rotation=-45)

plt.show()

Observations

• Most books are non-fiction, but only by a slight majority
  • Non Fiction: 56%
  • Fiction: 44%

Price

Summary Statistics

df["Price"].describe()

count    550.000000
mean      13.100000
std       10.842262
min        0.000000
25%        7.000000
50%       11.000000
75%       16.000000
max      105.000000
Name: Price, dtype: float64

Box plot

plt.boxplot(df['Price'])
plt.title('Box Plot of Price Values')
plt.xlabel('Price')
plt.ylabel('Value')
plt.yticks(range(0, 110, 5))
plt.show()

Histogram

plt.figure(figsize=(8,6), dpi=80)
sns.histplot(data=df["Price"], bins='auto')

plt.title('Amazon Bestsellers 2009-2019: Price')
plt.xlabel('Price')
plt.ylabel('Frequency')

plt.show()

Observations

• 50% of the price values for books are between 7 USD and 16 USD.
• Outliers are greater than 30 USD

Expensive Books

For our purposes we will define a book as expensive it costs more than 16 USD since 75% of books in our data set cost less than that.

expensive_books_sorted = df.loc[df['Price']>16].sort_values(by='Price', ascending=False)

num_expensive_books = len(expensive_books_sorted)

print(num_expensive_books, 'books sold for more than 16 USD')
expensive_books_sorted

122 books sold for more than 16 USD

	Name	Author	User Rating	Reviews	Price	Year	Genre
69	Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Di...	American Psychiatric Association	4.5	6679	105	2013	Non Fiction
70	Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Di...	American Psychiatric Association	4.5	6679	105	2014	Non Fiction
473	The Twilight Saga Collection	Stephenie Meyer	4.7	3801	82	2009	Fiction
151	Hamilton: The Revolution	Lin-Manuel Miranda	4.9	5867	54	2016	Non Fiction
346	The Book of Basketball: The NBA According to T...	Bill Simmons	4.7	858	53	2009	Non Fiction
...	...	...	...	...	...	...	...
311	StrengthsFinder 2.0	Gallup	4.0	5069	17	2016	Non Fiction
446	The Pioneer Woman Cooks: A Year of Holidays: 1...	Ree Drummond	4.8	2663	17	2013	Non Fiction
312	StrengthsFinder 2.0	Gallup	4.0	5069	17	2017	Non Fiction
342	The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine	Michael Lewis	4.7	3536	17	2010	Non Fiction
307	StrengthsFinder 2.0	Gallup	4.0	5069	17	2012	Non Fiction

122 rows × 7 columns

Summary Statistics

expensive_books_sorted['Price'].describe()

count    122.000000
mean      27.172131
std       14.925541
min       17.000000
25%       18.000000
50%       21.000000
75%       29.500000
max      105.000000
Name: Price, dtype: float64

Box plot

plt.boxplot(expensive_books_sorted['Price'])
plt.title('Expensive Books (>$16)')
plt.xlabel('Price')
plt.ylabel('Value')

plt.show()

Pie chart

expensive_books_genre = expensive_books_sorted['Genre'].value_counts()
percent_non_fic_expensive = round((expensive_books_genre['Non Fiction'] / num_expensive_books) * 100)
percent_fic_expensive = round((expensive_books_genre['Fiction'] / num_expensive_books) * 100)

print(expensive_books_genre)

# pie chart of genre for expensive books
genre_percents_expensive = [percent_non_fic_expensive, percent_fic_expensive]
genre_labels_expensive = ['Non Fiction', 'Fiction']

plt.pie(genre_percents_expensive, labels=genre_labels_expensive, autopct='%1.0f%%', startangle=140)
plt.axis('equal')
plt.title('Expensive Books: Genre')

plt.show()

Non Fiction    89
Fiction        33
Name: Genre, dtype: int64

Highest priced book

df.loc[df["Price"]==105]

	Name	Author	User Rating	Reviews	Price	Year	Genre
69	Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Di...	American Psychiatric Association	4.5	6679	105	2013	Non Fiction
70	Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Di...	American Psychiatric Association	4.5	6679	105	2014	Non Fiction

Observations

• The two highest priced books (Diagnostic and Statistics Manual... 105 USD, Twilight Saga 82 USD) are 50 USD more expensive than 75% of all the expensive books
• A majority (73%) of expensive books are non fiction

Inexpensive Books

For our purposes we will define inexpesive books that are priced less than 7 USD since 25% of all of the books are less than that.

inexpensive_books_sorted = df.loc[df["Price"]<=7].sort_values(by='Price', ascending=False)
num_inexpensive_books = len(inexpensive_books_sorted)

print(num_inexpensive_books, "books sold for 7 USD or less", )
inexpensive_books_sorted

148 books sold for 7 USD or less

	Name	Author	User Rating	Reviews	Price	Year	Genre
147	Goodnight, Goodnight Construction Site (Hardco...	Sherri Duskey Rinker	4.9	7038	7	2013	Fiction
399	The Handmaid's Tale	Margaret Atwood	4.3	29442	7	2017	Fiction
367	The Fault in Our Stars	John Green	4.7	50482	7	2014	Fiction
146	Goodnight, Goodnight Construction Site (Hardco...	Sherri Duskey Rinker	4.9	7038	7	2012	Fiction
283	Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That...	Susan Cain	4.6	10009	7	2013	Non Fiction
...	...	...	...	...	...	...	...
381	The Getaway	Jeff Kinney	4.8	5836	0	2017	Fiction
116	Frozen (Little Golden Book)	RH Disney	4.7	3642	0	2014	Fiction
42	Cabin Fever (Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Book 6)	Jeff Kinney	4.8	4505	0	2011	Fiction
358	The Constitution of the United States	Delegates of the Constitutional	4.8	2774	0	2016	Non Fiction
71	Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Hard Luck, Book 8	Jeff Kinney	4.8	6812	0	2013	Fiction

148 rows × 7 columns

Summary Statistics

inexpensive_books_sorted['Price'].describe()

count    148.000000
mean       4.804054
std        1.883183
min        0.000000
25%        4.000000
50%        5.000000
75%        6.000000
max        7.000000
Name: Price, dtype: float64

Box plot

plt.boxplot(inexpensive_books_sorted['Price'])
plt.title('Inexpensive Books (<=$7)')
plt.xlabel('Price')
plt.ylabel('Value')

plt.show()

Pie chart

inexpensive_books_genre = inexpensive_books_sorted['Genre'].value_counts()

percent_non_fic_inexpensive = round((inexpensive_books_genre['Non Fiction'] / num_inexpensive_books) * 100)
percent_fic_inexpensive = round((inexpensive_books_genre['Fiction'] / num_inexpensive_books) * 100)

print(inexpensive_books_genre)

# pie chart of genre for inexpesnive books
genre_percents_inexpensive = [percent_non_fic_inexpensive, percent_fic_inexpensive]
genre_labels_inexpensive = ['Non Fiction', 'Fiction']

plt.pie(genre_percents_inexpensive, labels=genre_labels_inexpensive, autopct='%1.0f%%', startangle=140)
plt.axis('equal')
plt.title('Inexpensive Books: Genre')

plt.show()

Fiction        83
Non Fiction    65
Name: Genre, dtype: int64

Free books

print(len(df.loc[df["Price"]==0]), "books sold for free")
df.loc[df["Price"]==0]

12 books sold for free

	Name	Author	User Rating	Reviews	Price	Year	Genre
42	Cabin Fever (Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Book 6)	Jeff Kinney	4.8	4505	0	2011	Fiction
71	Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Hard Luck, Book 8	Jeff Kinney	4.8	6812	0	2013	Fiction
116	Frozen (Little Golden Book)	RH Disney	4.7	3642	0	2014	Fiction
193	JOURNEY TO THE ICE P	RH Disney	4.6	978	0	2014	Fiction
219	Little Blue Truck	Alice Schertle	4.9	1884	0	2014	Fiction
358	The Constitution of the United States	Delegates of the Constitutional	4.8	2774	0	2016	Non Fiction
381	The Getaway	Jeff Kinney	4.8	5836	0	2017	Fiction
461	The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner: An Eclip...	Stephenie Meyer	4.6	2122	0	2010	Fiction
505	To Kill a Mockingbird	Harper Lee	4.8	26234	0	2013	Fiction
506	To Kill a Mockingbird	Harper Lee	4.8	26234	0	2014	Fiction
507	To Kill a Mockingbird	Harper Lee	4.8	26234	0	2015	Fiction
508	To Kill a Mockingbird	Harper Lee	4.8	26234	0	2016	Fiction

print(len(df.loc[df["Price"]==1]), "book sold for 1 USD")
df.loc[df["Price"]==1]

1 book sold for 1 USD

	Name	Author	User Rating	Reviews	Price	Year	Genre
91	Eat This Not That! Supermarket Survival Guide:...	David Zinczenko	4.5	720	1	2009	Non Fiction

Observations

• Some books appear multiple years in a row (e.g., 'To Kill a Mockingbird')
• A majority (75%) of inexpensive books are priced between 4 USD and 7 USD
• A slight majority (56%) of inexpensive books are fiction

User Rating

Bar graph

plt.figure(figsize=(10, 6), dpi=80)
sns.countplot(x='User Rating', data=df)

plt.show()

Summary Statistics

df['User Rating'].describe()

count    550.000000
mean       4.618364
std        0.226980
min        3.300000
25%        4.500000
50%        4.700000
75%        4.800000
max        4.900000
Name: User Rating, dtype: float64

Box plot

plt.boxplot(df['User Rating'])
plt.title('Box Plot of User Rating')
plt.xlabel('User Rating')
plt.ylabel('Count')
plt.show()

Highest Rated Books

For our purposes, we will define the highest rated books as any books that have a 'User Rating' of 4.9 since most books (75%) have a rating below value.

highest_rated_books = df.loc[df['User Rating']==4.9]
list_of_highest_rated_books = highest_rated_books['Name'].value_counts().index.tolist()

for book in list_of_highest_rated_books:
    print(book)

Oh, the Places You'll Go!
The Very Hungry Caterpillar
Jesus Calling: Enjoying Peace in His Presence (with Scripture References)
The Wonderful Things You Will Be
Goodnight, Goodnight Construction Site (Hardcover Books for Toddlers, Preschool Books for Kids)
Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?
Dog Man: Brawl of the Wild: From the Creator of Captain Underpants (Dog Man #6)
Dog Man: Lord of the Fleas: From the Creator of Captain Underpants (Dog Man #5)
Dog Man: For Whom the Ball Rolls: From the Creator of Captain Underpants (Dog Man #7)
Unfreedom of the Press
Dog Man: A Tale of Two Kitties: From the Creator of Captain Underpants (Dog Man #3)
The Magnolia Story
The Legend of Zelda: Hyrule Historia
Strange Planet (Strange Planet Series)
Rush Revere and the First Patriots: Time-Travel Adventures With Exceptional Americans (2)
Rush Revere and the Brave Pilgrims: Time-Travel Adventures with Exceptional Americans (1)
Dog Man: Fetch-22: From the Creator of Captain Underpants (Dog Man #8)
Obama: An Intimate Portrait
Little Blue Truck
Last Week Tonight with John Oliver Presents A Day in the Life of Marlon Bundo (Better Bundo Book, LGBT Children’s Book)
Dog Man and Cat Kid: From the Creator of Captain Underpants (Dog Man #4)
Humans of New York : Stories
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone: The Illustrated Edition (Harry Potter, Book 1)
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban: The Illustrated Edition (Harry Potter, Book 3)
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire: The Illustrated Edition (Harry Potter, Book 4) (4)
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets: The Illustrated Edition (Harry Potter, Book 2)
Hamilton: The Revolution
Wrecking Ball (Diary of a Wimpy Kid Book 14)

Observations

• 50% of User Rating are between 4.5 and 4.8
• Outliers are less than 4.1

Reviews

# create series for value counts
review_counts = df['Reviews'].value_counts()

# convert series to data frame
review_counts_df = pd.DataFrame({'num_reviews': review_counts.index, 'num_books': review_counts.values})

# create histogram of reviews
plt.figure(figsize=(10,6), dpi=80)
sns.histplot(data=review_counts_df['num_reviews'], bins='auto', binwidth=2000)
plt.title('Reviews')
plt.xlabel('Amount of Reviews')
plt.ylabel('Number of Books')

plt.show()

review_counts_df['num_reviews'].describe()

count      346.000000
mean      9786.430636
std      10871.900146
min         37.000000
25%       3362.750000
50%       6361.500000
75%      11510.250000
max      87841.000000
Name: num_reviews, dtype: float64

Books with Most Number of Reviews

Since 75% of books have fewer than 11,510 reviews, we will define highly reviewed books as books that have more than 11,510 reviews.

highest_reviews = df.loc[df['Reviews']>11510]
list_of_highest_reviews = highest_reviews['Name'].value_counts().index.tolist()

print(len(list_of_highest_reviews), 'book have greater than 11,510 reviews')

for book in list_of_highest_reviews:
    print(book)

88 book have greater than 11,510 reviews
Oh, the Places You'll Go!
The Very Hungry Caterpillar
The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom (A Toltec Wisdom Book)
Jesus Calling: Enjoying Peace in His Presence (with Scripture References)
First 100 Words
Wonder
Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption
To Kill a Mockingbird
The 5 Love Languages: The Secret to Love that Lasts
How to Win Friends & Influence People
Giraffes Can't Dance
The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing
The Help
The Fault in Our Stars
You Are a Badass: How to Stop Doubting Your Greatness and Start Living an Awesome Life
The Great Gatsby
Catching Fire (The Hunger Games)
Mockingjay (The Hunger Games)
The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life
Player's Handbook (Dungeons & Dragons)
Gone Girl
Milk and Honey
The Book Thief
The Art of Racing in the Rain: A Novel
The Hunger Games (Book 1)
The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics
Love You Forever
The Hunger Games Trilogy Boxed Set (1)
The Complete Ketogenic Diet for Beginners: Your Essential Guide to Living the Keto Lifestyle
School Zone - Big Preschool Workbook - Ages 4 and Up, Colors, Shapes, Numbers 1-10, Alphabet, Pre-Writing, Pre-Reading…
Ready Player One: A Novel
Proof of Heaven: A Neurosurgeon's Journey into the Afterlife
All the Light We Cannot See
A Man Called Ove: A Novel
The Nightingale: A Novel
The Girl on the Train
The Goldfinch: A Novel (Pulitzer Prize for Fiction)
Becoming
The Shack: Where Tragedy Confronts Eternity
Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?
If Animals Kissed Good Night
Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis
Educated: A Memoir
Heaven is for Real: A Little Boy's Astounding Story of His Trip to Heaven and Back
The Wonky Donkey
Fifty Shades of Grey: Book One of the Fifty Shades Trilogy (Fifty Shades of Grey Series)
Girl, Wash Your Face: Stop Believing the Lies About Who You Are So You Can Become Who You Were Meant to Be
Divergent
The Guardians: A Novel
The Hunger Games
1984 (Signet Classics)
The Handmaid's Tale
Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail
Where the Crawdads Sing
When Breath Becomes Air
Twilight (The Twilight Saga, Book 1)
A Dance with Dragons (A Song of Ice and Fire)
The Racketeer
A Game of Thrones / A Clash of Kings / A Storm of Swords / A Feast of Crows / A Dance with Dragons
A Gentleman in Moscow: A Novel
The Total Money Makeover: Classic Edition: A Proven Plan for Financial Fitness
The Martian
The Silent Patient
Divergent / Insurgent
Sycamore Row (Jake Brigance)
American Sniper: The Autobiography of the Most Lethal Sniper in U.S. Military History
Harry Potter Paperback Box Set (Books 1-7)
Dog Man: Fetch-22: From the Creator of Captain Underpants (Dog Man #8)
Fifty Shades Darker
Fifty Shades Freed: Book Three of the Fifty Shades Trilogy (Fifty Shades of Grey Series) (English Edition)
Fifty Shades Trilogy (Fifty Shades of Grey / Fifty Shades Darker / Fifty Shades Freed)
Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House
Go Set a Watchman: A Novel
Grey: Fifty Shades of Grey as Told by Christian (Fifty Shades of Grey Series)
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets: The Illustrated Edition (Harry Potter, Book 2)
Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, Parts 1 & 2, Special Rehearsal Edition Script
Can't Hurt Me: Master Your Mind and Defy the Odds
And the Mountains Echoed
Inferno
Last Week Tonight with John Oliver Presents A Day in the Life of Marlon Bundo (Better Bundo Book, LGBT Children’s Book)
Little Fires Everywhere
12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos
Origin: A Novel (Robert Langdon)
Orphan Train
Doctor Sleep: A Novel
The Alchemist
The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma
10-Day Green Smoothie Cleanse

Top 10 Highly Reviwed Books

highest_reviews_sorted = highest_reviews.sort_values(by='Reviews', ascending=False)
list_of_top_10_highest_reviews = highest_reviews_sorted['Name'].value_counts().head(10).index.tolist()

for book in list_of_top_10_highest_reviews:
    print(book)

Oh, the Places You'll Go!
The Very Hungry Caterpillar
Jesus Calling: Enjoying Peace in His Presence (with Scripture References)
The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom (A Toltec Wisdom Book)
How to Win Friends & Influence People
The 5 Love Languages: The Secret to Love that Lasts
Wonder
First 100 Words
To Kill a Mockingbird
Giraffes Can't Dance

Observations

Most books (75%) have fewer than 12,000 reviews.

Author

Let's investigate how many times an author published between 2009-2019 and which authors published the most during this time period.

author_counts = df["Author"].value_counts()
print(author_counts)

Jeff Kinney                           12
Gary Chapman                          11
Rick Riordan                          11
Suzanne Collins                       11
American Psychological Association    10
                                      ..
Keith Richards                         1
Chris Cleave                           1
Alice Schertle                         1
Celeste Ng                             1
Adam Gasiewski                         1
Name: Author, Length: 248, dtype: int64

Summary Statistics

author_counts.describe()

count    248.000000
mean       2.217742
std        2.046268
min        1.000000
25%        1.000000
50%        1.000000
75%        2.000000
max       12.000000
Name: Author, dtype: float64

Observations

• 75% of the authors on the list published only twice over the 10-year period of 2009-2019
• 25% of the authors published more than twice

Box plot

In this box plot, we can see how many times a bestselling author published a book between 2009 and 2019.

plt.boxplot(author_counts)
plt.title('Publishing Frequency of Authors')
plt.xlabel('Author')
plt.ylabel('Number of Published Entries')

plt.show()

Most Frequent Authors

For our purposes, we will define the most frequent authors as those who published more than twice.

mask_authors = author_counts>2
authors_most_frequent = author_counts[mask_authors]

print(len(authors_most_frequent), 'authors published more than two books from 2009-2019')
print(authors_most_frequent)

58 authors published more than two books from 2009-2019
Jeff Kinney                           12
Gary Chapman                          11
Rick Riordan                          11
Suzanne Collins                       11
American Psychological Association    10
Dr. Seuss                              9
Gallup                                 9
Rob Elliott                            8
Stephen R. Covey                       7
Stephenie Meyer                        7
Dav Pilkey                             7
Bill O'Reilly                          7
Eric Carle                             7
The College Board                      6
E L James                              6
Don Miguel Ruiz                        6
J.K. Rowling                           6
Stieg Larsson                          6
Sarah Young                            6
Harper Lee                             6
Laura Hillenbrand                      5
R. J. Palacio                          5
Dale Carnegie                          5
Patrick Lencioni                       5
Giles Andreae                          5
Roger Priddy                           5
John Green                             5
John Grisham                           5
Marie Kondō                            4
Rupi Kaur                              4
Rod Campbell                           4
Charlaine Harris                       4
Jim Collins                            4
Kathryn Stockett                       4
Emily Winfield Martin                  4
Stephen King                           4
Jen Sincero                            4
Malcolm Gladwell                       4
Thug Kitchen                           4
Veronica Roth                          4
Glenn Beck                             3
Drew Daywalt                           3
Rachel Hollis                          3
Walter Isaacson                        3
Gillian Flynn                          3
Dan Brown                              3
Rebecca Skloot                         3
Melissa Hartwig Urban                  3
Mark Manson                            3
Margaret Wise Brown                    3
George R.R. Martin                     3
F. Scott Fitzgerald                    3
Wizards RPG Team                       3
Ina Garten                             3
Brandon Stanton                        3
Ree Drummond                           3
Carol S. Dweck                         3
Francis Chan                           3
Name: Author, dtype: int64

plt.figure(figsize=(8, 6), dpi=80)
sns.histplot(data=authors_most_frequent, bins='auto', binwidth=1)

plt.title('Most Frequent Authors')
plt.xlabel('Number of Times Published')
plt.ylabel('Number of Authors')

plt.show()

Top 10 Authors

top_ten_authors = authors_most_frequent.head(10)
print(top_ten_authors)

Jeff Kinney                           12
Gary Chapman                          11
Rick Riordan                          11
Suzanne Collins                       11
American Psychological Association    10
Dr. Seuss                              9
Gallup                                 9
Rob Elliott                            8
Stephen R. Covey                       7
Stephenie Meyer                        7
Name: Author, dtype: int64

Bar plot

# convert series to data frame
top_ten_authors_df = pd.DataFrame({'Author': top_ten_authors.index, 'Count': top_ten_authors.values})

# create bar plot of data frame
plt.figure(figsize=(10,8))
sns.barplot(data=top_ten_authors_df, x='Author', y='Count')
plt.title('Top 10 Authors')
plt.xlabel('Author')
plt.xticks(rotation=90)
plt.ylabel('Count')

plt.show()

list_of_top_ten_authors = top_ten_authors.index.tolist()

df_top_10_authors = df[df['Author'].isin(list_of_top_ten_authors)]

df_top_10_authors

	Name	Author	User Rating	Reviews	Price	Year	Genre
38	Breaking Dawn (The Twilight Saga, Book 4)	Stephenie Meyer	4.6	9769	13	2009	Fiction
42	Cabin Fever (Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Book 6)	Jeff Kinney	4.8	4505	0	2011	Fiction
46	Catching Fire (The Hunger Games)	Suzanne Collins	4.7	22614	11	2010	Fiction
47	Catching Fire (The Hunger Games)	Suzanne Collins	4.7	22614	11	2011	Fiction
48	Catching Fire (The Hunger Games)	Suzanne Collins	4.7	22614	11	2012	Fiction
...	...	...	...	...	...	...	...
473	The Twilight Saga Collection	Stephenie Meyer	4.7	3801	82	2009	Fiction
474	The Ugly Truth (Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Book 5)	Jeff Kinney	4.8	3796	12	2010	Fiction
513	Twilight (The Twilight Saga, Book 1)	Stephenie Meyer	4.7	11676	9	2009	Fiction
528	What Pet Should I Get? (Classic Seuss)	Dr. Seuss	4.7	1873	14	2015	Fiction
545	Wrecking Ball (Diary of a Wimpy Kid Book 14)	Jeff Kinney	4.9	9413	8	2019	Fiction

95 rows × 7 columns

# book titles for top 10 authors
df_top_10_authors['Name'].value_counts()

Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, 6th Edition       10
StrengthsFinder 2.0                                                              9
Oh, the Places You'll Go!                                                        8
The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change     7
The 5 Love Languages: The Secret to Love that Lasts                              5
The 5 Love Languages: The Secret to Love That Lasts                              5
Laugh-Out-Loud Jokes for Kids                                                    5
Catching Fire (The Hunger Games)                                                 3
Knock-Knock Jokes for Kids                                                       3
Mockingjay (The Hunger Games)                                                    3
The Hunger Games Trilogy Boxed Set (1)                                           2
The Last Olympian (Percy Jackson and the Olympians, Book 5)                      2
The Hunger Games (Book 1)                                                        2
The Lost Hero (Heroes of Olympus, Book 1)                                        1
The Mark of Athena (Heroes of Olympus, Book 3)                                   1
The Meltdown (Diary of a Wimpy Kid Book 13)                                      1
Breaking Dawn (The Twilight Saga, Book 4)                                        1
The Red Pyramid (The Kane Chronicles, Book 1)                                    1
The Serpent's Shadow (The Kane Chronicles, Book 3)                               1
The Son of Neptune (Heroes of Olympus, Book 2)                                   1
The Third Wheel (Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Book 7)                                   1
The Throne of Fire (The Kane Chronicles, Book 2)                                 1
The Twilight Saga Collection                                                     1
The Ugly Truth (Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Book 5)                                    1
Twilight (The Twilight Saga, Book 1)                                             1
What Pet Should I Get? (Classic Seuss)                                           1
The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner: An Eclipse Novella (The Twilight Saga)     1
The Blood of Olympus (The Heroes of Olympus (5))                                 1
The Hunger Games                                                                 1
The House of Hades (Heroes of Olympus, Book 4)                                   1
The Getaway                                                                      1
The Five Love Languages: How to Express Heartfelt Commitment to Your Mate        1
Cabin Fever (Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Book 6)                                       1
Percy Jackson and the Olympians Paperback Boxed Set (Books 1-3)                  1
Old School (Diary of a Wimpy Kid #10)                                            1
New Moon (The Twilight Saga)                                                     1
Eclipse (Twilight)                                                               1
Eclipse (Twilight Sagas)                                                         1
Double Down (Diary of a Wimpy Kid #11)                                           1
Dog Days (Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Book 4) (Volume 4)                               1
Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Long Haul                                              1
Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Last Straw (Book 3)                                    1
Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Hard Luck, Book 8                                          1
Wrecking Ball (Diary of a Wimpy Kid Book 14)                                     1
Name: Name, dtype: int64

Top Author: Jeff Kinney

df.loc[df['Author']=='Jeff Kinney']

	Name	Author	User Rating	Reviews	Price	Year	Genre
42	Cabin Fever (Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Book 6)	Jeff Kinney	4.8	4505	0	2011	Fiction
71	Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Hard Luck, Book 8	Jeff Kinney	4.8	6812	0	2013	Fiction
72	Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Last Straw (Book 3)	Jeff Kinney	4.8	3837	15	2009	Fiction
73	Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Long Haul	Jeff Kinney	4.8	6540	22	2014	Fiction
80	Dog Days (Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Book 4) (Volum...	Jeff Kinney	4.8	3181	12	2009	Fiction
88	Double Down (Diary of a Wimpy Kid #11)	Jeff Kinney	4.8	5118	20	2016	Fiction
253	Old School (Diary of a Wimpy Kid #10)	Jeff Kinney	4.8	6169	7	2015	Fiction
381	The Getaway	Jeff Kinney	4.8	5836	0	2017	Fiction
435	The Meltdown (Diary of a Wimpy Kid Book 13)	Jeff Kinney	4.8	5898	8	2018	Fiction
468	The Third Wheel (Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Book 7)	Jeff Kinney	4.7	6377	7	2012	Fiction
474	The Ugly Truth (Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Book 5)	Jeff Kinney	4.8	3796	12	2010	Fiction
545	Wrecking Ball (Diary of a Wimpy Kid Book 14)	Jeff Kinney	4.9	9413	8	2019	Fiction

for author in list_of_top_ten_authors:
    print(author)

Jeff Kinney
Gary Chapman
Rick Riordan
Suzanne Collins
American Psychological Association
Dr. Seuss
Gallup
Rob Elliott
Stephen R. Covey
Stephenie Meyer

Observations

• 75% of authors only published twice during the time period
• The Top 10 most frequent authors are:
  • Jeff Kinney
  • Gary Chapman
  • Rick Riordan
  • Suzanne Collins
  • American Psychological Association
  • Dr. Seuss
  • Gallup
  • Rob Elliott
  • Stephen R. Covey
  • Stephenie Meyer

Book Title

Let's investigate the most frequent book titles between 2009-2019.

book_titles = df["Name"].value_counts()

print(book_titles)

Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, 6th Edition       10
StrengthsFinder 2.0                                                              9
Oh, the Places You'll Go!                                                        8
The Very Hungry Caterpillar                                                      7
The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change     7
                                                                                ..
Humans of New York : Stories                                                     1
Howard Stern Comes Again                                                         1
Homebody: A Guide to Creating Spaces You Never Want to Leave                     1
Have a Little Faith: A True Story                                                1
Night (Night)                                                                    1
Name: Name, Length: 351, dtype: int64

Summary Statistics

book_titles.describe()

count    351.000000
mean       1.566952
std        1.271868
min        1.000000
25%        1.000000
50%        1.000000
75%        2.000000
max       10.000000
Name: Name, dtype: float64

Box plot

plt.boxplot(book_titles)
plt.title('Publishing Frequency of Book Titles')
plt.xlabel('Book')
plt.ylabel('Number of Published Entries')

plt.show()

Observations

Similar to the frequency of author names, 75% of book titles appear 2 or fewer times. Meaning, that 25% of book titles appear 3 or more times during the time period of 2009-2019.

Most Frequent Book Titles

Based on our previous observation, we will define 'most frequent' as any book title that appears 3 or more times during the time period of 2009-2019.

mask_book_tiles = book_titles > 2
books_most_frequent = book_titles[mask_book_tiles]

print(len(books_most_frequent), 'book titles appear 3 or more times')
print(books_most_frequent)

41 book titles appear 3 or more times
Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, 6th Edition                            10
StrengthsFinder 2.0                                                                                   9
Oh, the Places You'll Go!                                                                             8
The Very Hungry Caterpillar                                                                           7
The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change                          7
The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom (A Toltec Wisdom Book)                     6
Jesus Calling: Enjoying Peace in His Presence (with Scripture References)                             6
The Official SAT Study Guide                                                                          5
To Kill a Mockingbird                                                                                 5
The 5 Love Languages: The Secret to Love That Lasts                                                   5
The 5 Love Languages: The Secret to Love that Lasts                                                   5
Laugh-Out-Loud Jokes for Kids                                                                         5
How to Win Friends & Influence People                                                                 5
Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption                                5
The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable                                                   5
Giraffes Can't Dance                                                                                  5
Wonder                                                                                                5
First 100 Words                                                                                       5
The Fault in Our Stars                                                                                4
Dear Zoo: A Lift-the-Flap Book                                                                        4
The Wonderful Things You Will Be                                                                      4
The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing                4
Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap and Others Don't                                      4
Thug Kitchen: The Official Cookbook: Eat Like You Give a F*ck (Thug Kitchen Cookbooks)                4
The Help                                                                                              4
You Are a Badass: How to Stop Doubting Your Greatness and Start Living an Awesome Life                4
Knock-Knock Jokes for Kids                                                                            3
Catching Fire (The Hunger Games)                                                                      3
Game of Thrones Boxed Set: A Game of Thrones/A Clash of Kings/A Storm of Swords/A Feast for Crows     3
Gone Girl                                                                                             3
The Day the Crayons Quit                                                                              3
Goodnight Moon                                                                                        3
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks                                                                  3
The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life                3
Player's Handbook (Dungeons & Dragons)                                                                3
Milk and Honey                                                                                        3
The Whole30: The 30-Day Guide to Total Health and Food Freedom                                        3
Mindset: The New Psychology of Success                                                                3
Crazy Love: Overwhelmed by a Relentless God                                                           3
Mockingjay (The Hunger Games)                                                                         3
The Great Gatsby                                                                                      3
Name: Name, dtype: int64

plt.figure(figsize=(8,6), dpi=80)
sns.histplot(data=books_most_frequent, bins='auto', binwidth=1)

plt.title('Most Frequent Book Titles')
plt.xlabel('Number of Times Published')
plt.ylabel('Number of Book Titles')

plt.show()

Top 10 Book Titles

top_ten_books = books_most_frequent.head(10)
print(top_ten_books)

Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, 6th Edition            10
StrengthsFinder 2.0                                                                   9
Oh, the Places You'll Go!                                                             8
The Very Hungry Caterpillar                                                           7
The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change          7
The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom (A Toltec Wisdom Book)     6
Jesus Calling: Enjoying Peace in His Presence (with Scripture References)             6
The Official SAT Study Guide                                                          5
To Kill a Mockingbird                                                                 5
The 5 Love Languages: The Secret to Love That Lasts                                   5
Name: Name, dtype: int64

Bar plot

# convert series to data frame
top_ten_books_df = pd.DataFrame({'Name': top_ten_books.index, 'Count': top_ten_books.values})

# create bar plot of data frame
plt.figure(figsize=(10,8))
sns.barplot(data=top_ten_books_df, x='Name', y='Count')
plt.title('Top 10 Books')
plt.xlabel('Book Title')
plt.xticks(rotation=90)
plt.ylabel('Count')

plt.show()

list_of_top_ten_books = top_ten_books.index.tolist()

df_top_10_books = df[df['Name'].isin(list_of_top_ten_books)]

df_top_10_books

	Name	Author	User Rating	Reviews	Price	Year	Genre
187	Jesus Calling: Enjoying Peace in His Presence ...	Sarah Young	4.9	19576	8	2011	Non Fiction
188	Jesus Calling: Enjoying Peace in His Presence ...	Sarah Young	4.9	19576	8	2012	Non Fiction
189	Jesus Calling: Enjoying Peace in His Presence ...	Sarah Young	4.9	19576	8	2013	Non Fiction
190	Jesus Calling: Enjoying Peace in His Presence ...	Sarah Young	4.9	19576	8	2014	Non Fiction
191	Jesus Calling: Enjoying Peace in His Presence ...	Sarah Young	4.9	19576	8	2015	Non Fiction
...	...	...	...	...	...	...	...
505	To Kill a Mockingbird	Harper Lee	4.8	26234	0	2013	Fiction
506	To Kill a Mockingbird	Harper Lee	4.8	26234	0	2014	Fiction
507	To Kill a Mockingbird	Harper Lee	4.8	26234	0	2015	Fiction
508	To Kill a Mockingbird	Harper Lee	4.8	26234	0	2016	Fiction
509	To Kill a Mockingbird	Harper Lee	4.8	26234	7	2019	Fiction

68 rows × 7 columns

Top Book: Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, 6th Edition

df.loc[df['Name']=='Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, 6th Edition']

	Name	Author	User Rating	Reviews	Price	Year	Genre
271	Publication Manual of the American Psychologic...	American Psychological Association	4.5	8580	46	2009	Non Fiction
272	Publication Manual of the American Psychologic...	American Psychological Association	4.5	8580	46	2010	Non Fiction
273	Publication Manual of the American Psychologic...	American Psychological Association	4.5	8580	46	2011	Non Fiction
274	Publication Manual of the American Psychologic...	American Psychological Association	4.5	8580	46	2012	Non Fiction
275	Publication Manual of the American Psychologic...	American Psychological Association	4.5	8580	46	2013	Non Fiction
276	Publication Manual of the American Psychologic...	American Psychological Association	4.5	8580	46	2014	Non Fiction
277	Publication Manual of the American Psychologic...	American Psychological Association	4.5	8580	46	2015	Non Fiction
278	Publication Manual of the American Psychologic...	American Psychological Association	4.5	8580	46	2016	Non Fiction
279	Publication Manual of the American Psychologic...	American Psychological Association	4.5	8580	46	2017	Non Fiction
280	Publication Manual of the American Psychologic...	American Psychological Association	4.5	8580	46	2018	Non Fiction

for book in list_of_top_ten_books:
    print(book)

Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, 6th Edition
StrengthsFinder 2.0
Oh, the Places You'll Go!
The Very Hungry Caterpillar
The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change
The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom (A Toltec Wisdom Book)
Jesus Calling: Enjoying Peace in His Presence (with Scripture References)
The Official SAT Study Guide
To Kill a Mockingbird
The 5 Love Languages: The Secret to Love That Lasts

Observations

Top 10 most common book titles:

• Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, 6th - Edition
• StrengthsFinder 2.0
• Oh, the Places You'll Go!
• The Very Hungry Caterpillar
• The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal - Change
• The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom (A Toltec - Wisdom Book)
• Jesus Calling: Enjoying Peace in His Presence (with Scripture - References)
• The Official SAT Study Guide
• To Kill a Mockingbird
• The 5 Love Languages: The Secret to Love That Lasts

Analysis Conclusions

After the analysis, it's time to reflect on what was observed in the data. Let's look at our investigative questions and the answers yielded by our analysis.

Initial Questions

Our analysis has yield answers to our intial questions from the Ask Phase:

• What author(s) published the most between 2009-2019?
  • Jeff Kinney is the most common author to appear with his series 'Diarty of a Wimpy Kid'
  • The top 10 authors who appeared the most published at least 7 times during the 10-year period
• What percentage of books were fiction vs. non-ficiton?
  • Non-fiction: 56%
    • A majority (73%) of expensive books are non-fiction; the higher the price a big is, the more likely it is to be non-fiction
  • Fiction: 44%
• What book appears the most between 2009-2019?
  • Top book (appearing 10 times, every year): 'Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, 6th Edition' publsihed by the American Pscyhological Association
  • The top 10 books include:
    • Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, 6th Edition
    • StrengthsFinder 2.0
    • Oh, the Places You'll Go!
    • The Very Hungry Caterpillar
    • The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change
    • The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom (A Toltec Wisdom Book)
    • Jesus Calling: Enjoying Peace in His Presence (with Scripture References)
    • The Official SAT Study Guide
    • To Kill a Mockingbird
    • The 5 Love Languages: The Secret to Love That Lasts

Other Observations

• Most (75%) bestselling books are 16 USD or less with 50% of books priced between 7 USD and 16 USD
• There's little or no correllation between User Rating, Price, and Reviews.
• A slim majority (56%) of books are non-fiction
• 73% of expensive books (greater tan 16 USD) are non-fiction
• 75% of expensive books (greater than 16 USD) are priced between 17 USD and 30 USD
• A slim majority (56%) of inexpensive books (less than 17 USD) are fiction
• 75% of User Ratings are 4.5 or above with 50% between 4.5 and 4.8
• 75% of authors only publsihed twice during the 10-year period

References

• Data Source: Kaggle
• Why Does The Amazon Book Market Share Dominate The Market?

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