The Kaiju Preservation Society a New York Times, USA Today, Los Angeles Times, Independent Booksellers, Amazon and Audible Bestseller
Posted on March 23, 2022 Posted by John Scalzi 42 Comments

How is Kaiju a bestseller? Let’s add it up!
New York Times: #10 (Combined Print & eBook)
USA Today: #19 (This list covers all books sold in the US)
Audible: #6 (Audiobook Fiction)
Los Angeles Times: #4 (Hardcover Fiction)
Indie Booksellers: #10 (Hardcover Fiction)
Amazon: #15 (Fiction, across all formats)
You know what? This is a good day.
Thank you, all of you who bought the book, in whatever format. I could not be happier.
— JS
Happy for you! Half way through and resenting interruptions like work and family.
And thank you for writing it! For some reason, when lockdown started, I couldn’t bring myself to read fiction. When the vaccines happened and I started leaving the house (once in a while), I bought a few books … but haven’t read them yet.
But how can you resist something called “Kaiju Preservation Society?” It took a few days to start, but I got the ebook version so I could access it on my phone from anywhere, and now I’m reading! Fiction! Again! There are not enough exclamation marks in the universe for how excited I am.
Also – enjoying the hell out of it so far.
It was a ton of fun, John. I loved it.
Conga-rats! I have a hardcover of the book. It’s hard to put down.
Finished it last night and it was a great ride.
Went ahead and bought the Audible version so I can play it for Zach on our road trip – and so I can hear Wil read it because I read it in his voice! :)
Congratulations John! The book is awesome!
Now we’re doing a Kaiju movie marathon in honor of it. Started with Gojira, of course!
Congratulations! At the moment Tamsyn Muir has her literary hooks deep into my bones but TKPS is on my list for sure.
Congrats John! It is definitely a good read . You and Tor has done a great job getting the word out about it.
mozel tov!
good book… good read… good bones for a mini series…
…and I’ll bet there’s a real life Kaiju Wrestling Match underway… Amazon versus Netflix… bidding up past a half megabuck for rights to turn KPS into a ten part mini series…
(okay so maybe I’m a little jealous) (just a little itty-bitty spoonful)
Congratulations! Well deserved! I listened to the audio book and purchased the Kindle version for our collective. It is a delightful novel.
I bought the ebook (to read it asap) and the hardback (for the pleasure of holding and reading a REAL book). Just got the hardback and am eagerly digging into it again. What a great read! It is hard to imagine a sequel, but I would love to read it!!
Congratulations, Mr. Scalzi, on your newest best-seller! I hope it continues on that trend!
Shirley Will, I had (and still have) the exact same anxiety reaction to the pandemic – I can’t stand to read any book for which I do not know the ending. It’s just too close to home for me. I hope I find the same thing happens with Kaiju that did for you. I’ve been a long, long time without fiction in my life.
I should treat this to rebound after my last book but I’m reading an arc to review and need to get it done.
Wonderful!
Bought it from Barnes & Noble for the Nook e-reader. Pricey, I wondered if all the e-book formats cost the same, but I didn’t want to wait and mess around looking for a competitive price.
Can’t wait! It’s queued up in my Audible as soon as I finish the last “Bobiverse” book. (Which are awesome and sound like they were written by you, high praise to their author Dennis E Taylor). Why are all my favorite books a series?!? Old Man’s War, The Interdependy, etc
I thoroughly enjoyed it. I would’ve finished it in less than 12 hours, but a little thing named sleep intervened. As it was I finished it in less than 24 hours.
There’s plenty of meat still left in that setting. Please consider writing more stories of the KPS. Thanks.
It’s such a shame that your books don’t sell. I know that’s true because I read it on Twitter, and if they put it on Twitter it has to be true.
But I’m sure there’s some metric out there which the rather less successful will be pointing to to convince themselves that actually the book isn’t doing all that well….
Got my copy today!
Truly awesome. The biggest congrats!
Congratulations John! A bunch of friends and I came to the Boulder Bookstore today to see you, and we had a good time, so thanks for that too. I’m glad to see you getting really good sales, on a book that you so clearly enjoyed writing. It’s next up in the to-read pile for me.
Excellent news!
I was planning to pick it up eventually but not necessarily right at release, but then a friend online who posts lots of quotes from his Kindle posted a very familiar one about firebombs, and I was like welp I guess I better get it so I can read the whole thing before I start getting lots of stuff out of context! So I did and it was so much fun, I loved it!
I did the same thing – except I had a gift card so I was like well, ok, we’ll spend more on an ebook this time. I haven’t looked, but I honestly haven’t found any ebooks yet that weren’t the same price everywhere (barring the occasional sale) so I’m guessing this is probably the same…
Congrats! I’m glad that my one purchase helped you out. I’m ready to ask you a minor (very minor!) spoiler question, so are you going to have a open plot question thread anytime soon?
“ I could not be happier.” -JS
Hmm. Challenge accepted!
What if… you /also/ had a Kaiju-themed burrito? No increase in happiness level? Not even a little? Hmm?
I’m pacing myself through it, rather than gobbling it in three large bites. Have to say, the Jizz thermos incident gave my a 5-minute rotfl time-out.
(And Jizz Thermos Incident would be an awesome band name…)
No, thank you for putting out such an awesome, entertaining book!
Since scientists have made a breakthrough in technology allowing “locked-in” people to communicate, how long do you think it’ll be before the technology in KPS will also come to fruition? ;)
https://www.sciencealert.com/completely-locked-in-patient-with-als-communicates-again-with-a-brain-transplant
The book is well worth the accolades. I got my copy in the mail yesterday around 1 PM, read the first chapter, and then decided the chores I had for throughout the day weren’t that important. I finished it by 10 PM.
Now I want to read it again, but those chores from yesterday and a robotics team meeting this afternoon/evening are preventing me from doing so. Maybe Friday.
Just got my copy the other day from Powell’s Books. Embarrassed to say I’d forgotten I’d ordered it.
OTOH, started in on it last night and had a minor question. Is the pronunciation of the startup our hero works for one that rhymes with the surname of Bugs Bunny’s nemesis…or is it supposed to be an allegedly hoity-toity way of saying “FoodMood?”
Not surprised.
I just started reading this last night, and it captivated the heck out of me from the first paragraph. It is rare for a book to grip me like that so early. I’d likely keep reading if not for a poorly timed tornado warning, and then the knowledge I had to wake up early to get the kids off to school.
You did good, Scalzi. You did real good.
Awesome! Bought it, devoured it, need more Kaiju.
Just the one reader, this time? No Amber Benson version ;)
Amazon also has it listed as an “Editor’s Pick” — I already have the Kindle version, but I just pre-ordered the large print edition for my aunt (long-time SF fan, but having issues with smaller print these days).
@Peter — from a later comment, I think it’s supposed to be pronounced “Food Mood”.
I loved it. Now I want a “I Lift Things” tee-shirt. Merchandising opportunity?
But how well is it selling in Hungarian? :-P
Congratulations Mr. Scalzi! It was great seeing you last night in Boulder. I was holding off on listening to the book until after your appearance but started it on the drive back to northern Colorado. I am really enjoying it and look forward to finishing it this evening!
Congratulations! I inhaled this book. It was a tonne of fun.
Thank you very much for writing it.
Thank you, really big!
I simply couldn’t wait and finished the ebook before my preordered hardcopy was received.
Honestly John, it was a wonderful break from the real world.
Love you, love your books, more please.
Enjoyable. One quibble: had I been your copyreader I would have boggled politely over the term “ionized radiation” thinking you had to have intended “ionizing” … but lo, found with an ‘oogle. I still don’t understand what it is, but it appears to exist.
The transient behavior of transistors due to ionized radiation …
https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/6591381
“The transient behavior of transistors” could be the name of a prog-rock band.
…or maybe the third concept album by ‘Ionized Radiation’.
“Yeah, man, that was the one where the conceptualization got really concept-y, you know?”