2 Bestselling Poetry Books
Period: March/April - 2019
Celebrating books written by or about Black people, the African American Literature Book Club’s Bestsellers List has been published continuously since 1998 (Learn More ▶). In 2025, we began publishing our list annually, focusing our efforts on America’s top-selling titles: The BLK Bestsellers.
Fiction: The Crossroads anthology is the top-selling book across all genres this period and features the writing of 21 bestselling and award-winning authors (only available as a Kindle eBook).
Nonfiction: Nonfiction was the best selling genre this period. Authors like Lerone Bennett, Anthony Browder, and Carter G. Woodson are joined by other writers who uplift and inform readers about our great contributions to civilization.
Children’s Books: I Am Loved, by Nikki Giovanni,
which made our “Top 130+ African-American Children’s Books” list, leads all Children’s sales.
Poetry: Poetry from Mariahadessa Ekere Tallie and Nichole L. Shields tops our poetry book sales.
More About our Bestsellers List
View a printer-friendly version or a collage of the book covers.
You will learn about books selling well in the Black community that may never show up on lists published by corporate entities. Spread the word about our list; don’t let one or two lists, which we don’t control, determine which books are important.
We collect our bestselling titles from all our sales channels. The majority of our sales come from this website and our in-person events. We also include sales generated through our affiliate relationships, including Bookshop.org, Libro.fm (audiobooks), and Amazon.com*.
*For a few years, we actively boycotted Amazon but have discontinued this practice to ensure we do not exclude authors who are exclusive to that platform. We still discourage exclusivity but support all Black authors.