Bestseller Brief | Anime Lifts Graphic Novels; Japan's New Book Chart Signals Shift

Bestseller Brief

Here's what's happening this week in the world of books & media marketing:
- Anime-fueled manga and TMNT dominate July US graphic novel sales.
- Japan adds a cross-format book chart spanning print, digital, libraries.
- YA leans into simultaneous hardcover-paperback to widen price access.
- Higher Ground taps S.A. Cosby IP, priming retail-media flywheels.
- Bookstagram launch stunt shows IG-first creative can drive preorders.

⏱️ Why Your Attribution Model Might Be Leading You Astray

At eTail Boston 2025, Fospha’s Chief Product Officer Dom Devlin joined leaders from Ahold Delhaize, Fleet Feet and Bonsai to tackle one of marketing’s most expensive blind spots: how brands measure performance across channels.

Too many brands still skew budgets toward the final click - because that’s the only place their reporting gives them certainty, all while under-funding the demand generation that actually drives long-term growth. Fleet Feet’s Tiffany Lee shared how cutting upper-funnel spend for just eight months saw new customer acquisition drop sharply, only recovering once awareness campaigns were restored.

Dom added another layer: the marketplace blind spot. Fospha’s data shows 42% of Amazon sales are influenced by non-Amazon ads - yet most reporting tools treat those sales as “organic,” meaning the channels that triggered the purchase never get the credit. Without that visibility, key growth drivers are left under-invested.

This is where Fospha’s Halo capability comes in - bringing DTC and marketplace sales into one Unified ROAS metric. It allows brands to see the true impact of channels like TikTok, Meta, and YouTube across all revenue streams, not just their own sites, and make confident, evidence-based decisions about where to spend next.

🔎 Read the full session insights to see all the panel’s takeaways on full-funnel measurement and closing marketplace gaps

📥️ Explore Fospha’s Halo Report to uncover how brands like Nécessaire used it to beat their Prime Day benchmarks by 47%

📌WEEKLY MUST-KNOWS

MARKET DATA
July 2025 Circana BookScan - Top 20 Adult Graphic Novels
Anime-tied manga and TMNT hardcovers dominated July’s US Adult Graphic Novels per Circana BookScan, with two new anime-driven Vol. 1 entries and Solo Leveling absent for the first time in recent memory. This underscores how streaming windows and legacy IP shape print sell-through and discovery. Publishers, retailers, and marketers should align promotions and inventory to anime drops and cross-media moments.

MEASUREMENT & CHARTS
Billboard Japan To Launch New Book Chart
Billboard Japan will roll out a comprehensive book chart tracking print, digital, subscription, and library data. This expands upstream demand signals for Japan-origin IP and offers a cross-format read on momentum. US marketers and rights teams can use earlier indicators to time imports, campaigns, and inventory around titles likely to travel.

PUBLISHING STRATEGY
New YA Book Releases For August 13, 2025
Book Riot highlights a growing YA tactic: simultaneous hardcover and paperback releases. The move widens price access, shortens time-to-purchase, and enables better A/B testing across formats. Retailers can trial price anchoring, bundles, and PDP variants to improve conversion and reduce returns.

⚡QUICK READS

The Best New Book Releases Out August 12, 2025: Higher Ground is set to executive produce a series adaptation of S.A. Cosby’s All the Sinners Bleed—an IP pipeline signal that can catalyze backlist lift and retail-media cross-promo.(More)

Tourist Season: Innovative Bookstagram Marketing Campaign By Brynne Weaver: An Instagram-native “Bookstagram” stunt underscores author-led social activations as a lever for preorder velocity—test IG-first creative and UGC loops during launch weeks.(More)

Graphic Novel Watch: Franchise Volatility Signal: Solo Leveling’s absence from July’s Top 20 Adult Graphic Novels flags cadence and fatigue risk—tighten release timing and promo bursts to sustain series momentum into Q4.(More)

ClickZ is a ClickZ Media publication in the DTC eCommerce division