Refaat Alareer’s “If I Must Die” is officially a national bestseller

It didn’t happen the way we expected: The book has not yet made the New York Times bestseller list, but the other list the industry tracks is USA Today’s “Booklist.” And there, it settled in at #20 in its first week out.

The amount of attention a book gets during its launch has much to do with where it lands in our cultural landscape, which is the best part about all the energy around it the past few weeks. My hope is that Refaat’s book will be taught and read for years to come and is treated like the political and literary masterpiece it truly is.

The goal of hitting the Times list is still achievable, meanwhile, for two reasons. The Times list is opaque, but a publishing industry source told me that my initial understanding – that the paper counts orders as sales even if the book is out of stock – is probably not correct, and it’s more likely they count orders when they ship.

The book sold more than 20,000 copies but only 7,500 had been printed. That means that when the new printing arrives in January, at least 12,500 will be shipped, and in a typical January week, that number of sales is more than enough to make the bestseller list. So if you haven’t ordered one yet but still want to, your order will still count toward that effort.

I’ve heard from some people who’ve gotten notes from Amazon or other booksellers saying that the estimated ship date for the book is as late as March. That’s not true. The publisher has a very big print run going in January, so you’ll get your copy much sooner. If all of those books ship the same week, it should still make the NYT bestseller list. A huge thank you to everyone who bought a book, and I hope you’re glad that you did.

As we approach the end of our first calendar year, I wanted also to thank everyone who has made our launch such a success, and enabled us to expand our on-the-ground reporting to new countries. We now have more than 285,000 total subscribers, and more than 8,400 of those are paying subscribers. If you haven’t yet upgraded to a paid subscription, consider doing that below.

And if you’re making end-of-year charitable gifts, don’t forget that contributions to Drop Site are tax-deductible. We’re about $25,000 short of our year-end goal, but I think we’re on track to hit it. More on ways you can give here. Thank you again.

If you missed our recent dispatch from Shuaib Almosawa, based in Sana’a, Yemen, check that one out here.