Self-publishing reaches a new milestone this week. The number one title on the 4/28 NYT Combined Print & E-Book Fiction Best Seller list is a self-published novel, The Bet, by Rachel Van Dyken (read excerpts on the author’s blog).

This is the first time since the NYT began publishing separate ebook best seller lists in February of 2011 that a self-pubbed title has topped the combined list (Wait For You by J. Lynn and Hopeless by Colleen Hoover both hit #1 on the ebook only list, but didn’t break through on the combined list, where they appeared at #2. Both authors subsequently signed with traditional publishers. Fifty Shades of Grey did not appear on the NYT lists until after it was picked up by Random House).

A total of three self-published titles are on the current combined list of fifteen, two of them in the top ten, an evolving shift from the first lists, which had none.

Idaho author Van Dyken has published several historical romances with Astraea Press. She tells Forbes in an interview that Astraea was uncomfortable with The Bet because it falls into the “New Adult/Contemp” category and it “only does sweet romance,” so she decided to self-publish through Amazon’s CreateSpace.

While many of the author’s previous e-books are available via OverDrive, this one is not. It is also published in mass market paperback (ISBN: 978-1483918778), but it is not currently listed on wholesaler databases.

The eighth novel by British author Kate Atkinson, Life After Life, (Hachette/Little, Brown/Reagan Arthur; Hachette Audio; Hachette Large Print), debuts on this week’s NYT Hardcover Fiction Best Seller list at #3, the highest spot yet for the author. Her previous novel, Started Early, Took My Dog (2011) hit the extended list when it was published.

It has been reviewed widely in the U.S., including an early review by Janet Maslin in the daily New York Times, which states, “Life After Life is a big book that defies logic, chronology and even history in ways that underscore its author’s fully untethered imagination.” It is an IndieNext #1 pick for April and was much buzzed about by librarians on GalleyChat.

Below is a quick look at titles to know before you work the information desk today.

Media Attention

The Way of the Knife: The CIA, a Secret Army, and a War at the Ends of the Earth, Mark Mazzetti, (Penguin Press) — NYT front page story, Washington Post book review, plus an appearance on Face the Nation, with much more coming this week (see our New Title Radar, Media Magnets).

Carrie and Me: A Mother-Daughter Love Story, Carol Burnett, (S&S; S&S Audio) — Carol Burnett was featured on CBS Sunday Morning, yesterday (see video).

Holds Alert

Life After Life, Kate Atkinson, (Hachette/Little, Brown/Reagan Arthur; Hachette Audio; Hachette Large Print) is on the rise. It has been reviewed widely, most recently in the L.A. Times and the Seattle Times.

Expect to see it on next week’s best seller lists; it is currently at #4 on Amazon sales rankings and has been in the top 100 for 2 weeks.

NYT Notable Hardcover Best Seller Debuts

Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald, Therese Anne Fowler, (Macmillan/St. Martin’s; Macmillan Audio; Thorndike Large Print)

The latest in the “Real Housewives of Historical Fiction” genre (recent titles include The Paris Wife, which continues as a best seller at #8 on the Trade Paperback list and The Aviator’s Wife, which is now on the extended hardcover list) follows in the footsteps the other titles’ footsteps, arriving on the NYT Fiction best seller list at #10. See our earlier coverage (also note that promotion for Baz Luhrmann’s The Great Gatsby may bring additional interest).

World War II continues to be a strong interest in Nonfiction, with

Those Angry Days: Roosevelt, Lindbergh, and America’s Fight Over World War II, 1939-1941, (Random House) — #10 in nonfiction. It was featured on NPR at the end of March.

The Girls of Atomic City: The Untold Story of the Women Who Helped Win World War II, Denise Kiernan, (Touchstone, $27.) About the women who worked on a project was enriching uranium for the first atomic bomb. — at #14. The author appeared on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.

The popularity of “bonnet fiction” continues with a new title by the “queen of the genre,”  Beverly Lewis’s The Guardian, (Baker/Bethany House). It debuts at #5 on Trade Paperback fiction list.

Childrens Books 

New to the NYT Children’s Picture Books best seller list:

Poems to Learn by Heart, collected by Caroline Kennedy, illus. by Jon J. Muth, (Disney/Hyperion, 3/26/13). arrives at #1. See our earlier story.

Green by Laura Vaccaro Seeger, (Macmillan/Roaring Brook), the perfect title for spring,  debuts at #9  even though it has been out for a year. EarlyWord Kids contributor Lisa Von Drasek included it in her annual list of “Best Books To Give Younger Kids You Don’t Know Very Well.”  The book’s trailer shows off its clever cut-outs:

On this week’s USA Today best seller list, Sheryl Sandberg’s “sort of feminist” manifesto, Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead, (RH/Knopf; RH Audio; BOT) is #1 in its second week on the list, after debuting at #133 last week.

That may not be much of a surprise, given the amount of attention it has received. The surprise is that it’s one of the few hardcovers on the list. By contrast, the latest Alex Cross title  by James Patterson is at #3, but in ebook. Of the top 50 USA Today bestsellers, 27 are ebooks, 18 paperbacks and just 8 hardcovers.

After a slow start, many libraries are showing heavy holds on all formats of Lean In.

Dr. Ben Carson has become the “New Conservative Folk Hero,” declares Atlantic magazine, since he confronted President Obama at the National Prayer Breakfast, a venue that isn’t known for making news (see below; as the Atlantic advises, “Things don’t get interesting for a while, so you might want to skip to about halfway through”).

The soon-to-retire head of pediatric neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins Hospital has even been called on to run for President in an editorial in the Wall Street Journal.

His latest book, America the Beautiful, published last year and now available in paperback (HarperCollins/Zondervan), has been in the top ten on Amazon for the last two weeks, rising as high as #1 and appears on the March 3 NYT Paperback Non-fiction Best Seller list at #12. Libraries are showing heavy holds.

Media attention is in the works; Carson appeared on NPR’s On Point today, he will appear on Glenn Beck’s internet TV show on Thursday and on FOX’s Lou Dobbs show.

Also on the rise are Carson’s other titles, also from Zondervan;

Gifted Hands: The Ben Carson Story by Ben Carson  (1992)

Gifted Hands, Kids Edition: The Ben Carson Story (ZonderKidz Biography) by Gregg Lewis and Deborah Shaw Lewis (2009)

Think Big: Unleashing Your Potential for Excellence by Ben Carson  (2005)

Take the Risk: Learning to Identify, Choose, and Live with Acceptable Risk by Ben Carson M.D. and Gregg Lewis (2007)

The Big Picture by Ben Carson and Gregg Lewis (2000)

“How long before Fifty Shades of Grey hits theaters?” asks a weary world.

Not before summer of 2014, says Universal chairman Adam Fogelson in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter.

Is he worried about the danger of missing the buzz?

He’s more concerned that rushing it into production would not be a good strategy for the “second or third film” in the series. They haven’t chosen a director yet and, no, they didn’t ask Angelina Jolie to fill that chair (she’s heading up Unbroken, based on the book by Laura Hillenbrand).

He also notes, in an understatement, that “there are totally legitimate questions about what this book is as a movie.”

We can cease speculating; Americans have embraced the European best seller, The Dinner by Dutch author Herman Koch (RH/Hogarth; AudioGo; Thorndike Large Print). It arrives at #36 on the new USA Today Best Seller list.

In terms of popularity, it’s not another Gone Girl, (RH/Crown), which entered the same list at #7 during its first week on sale, topped only by the Fifty Shades of Grey and the Hunger Games trilogies. That same week, it hit the NYT list at #1.

Even if it doesn’t live up to the comparison to Gone Girl (and what can?), it’s still doing very well and is likely to hit the NYT list in the top ten.

People magazine catches up with it in the latest issue (March 4th), giving it 3 of 4 stars, but the review reads more like a 5; “Koch’s skewering of elitism and self-serving morality is a wickedly delicious feast.” The many other reviews have also been positive. The only holdout has been Janet Maslin in the NYT, who dismissed it as “an extended stunt.”

Laura Schroff’s book about how her simple act of kindness towards an 11-year-old homeless boy changed not only his life, but her own, An Invisible Thread (S&S/Howard Books; Tantor Audio; Thorndike Large Print), came out in 2011. The paperback edition hit the lower rungs of the NYT extended list in September.

The author appeared on the Today Show just before Christmas, bringing Kathie Lee and Hoda to  tears and sending the book to #15 on the Jan. 15  NYT Paperback Nonfiction list.

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Early footage for director Marc Forester’s adaptation of World War Z starring Brad Pitt hit the Web yesterday (it’s just a teaser for the trailer which will debut on tomorrow’s Entertainment Tonight).

There’s not much for the book’s purist fans to go on, so judgment is being saved for the full trailer. The minimalist poster (above, right), however, is the butt of some derision.

The movie arrives in theaters this coming June 21.

UPDATE: Below is the full trailer.

Attention to the movie is bringing new readers to the book; it’s rising on Amazon’s sales rankings.

World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War Max Brooks Retail Price: $14.95 Kindle Edition: 352 pages Publisher: RH/Broadway – (2007-10-16) ISBN / EAN: 9780307346612, 0307346617

The tie-in trade paperback (RH/Broadway) and audio CD (RH Audio) arrive in April.

The mainstreaming of erotic novels continues. Sylvia Day’s Reflected in You goes to #1 on the new NYT Paperback trade Best Seller list, just above E.L. James’s Fifty Shades trilogy. The first in Day’s Crossfire series, Bared to You, is at #7 on the list, after 20 weeks.

The 2011 cover

The life-long Californian, is also nosing aside British native James in the U.K.

Day has published several other books in various genres. One of her historicals, Seven Years to Sin (Kensington; Brilliance Audio) also debuts on this list, at #18, after being re-released with a new cover. Day has said that Bared to You, “in some ways .. feels like an extension of Seven Years to Sin … even though they’re set 200 years apart.”

On our Crystal Ball as the potential surprise hit of the season, The Middlesteins by Jami Attenberg (Hachette/Grand Central) arrives at #133 on the USA Today Best-Selling Books list and at #25 on the NYT Extended Hardcover Fiction list, after its first week on sale.

The book is often compared to The Corrections and author Jonathan Franzen himself gave it a rare blurb, “The Middlesteins had me from its very first pages, but it wasn’t until is final pages that I fully appreciated the range of Attenberg’s sympathy and the artistry of her storytelling.”

The two books may also compare in best seller history. The Corrections made its debut on the USA Today list in a similarly low position, at #150, but rose to #1 after five weeks.

Consumer reviews, while strong, have not been as widespread as would be expected from the advance attention (the NYT relegated it to a mention in their “Newly Released Books” column). In the Washington Post, Ron Charles  says, “The nimble structure of this novel is just one of the elements that keep it engaging.”

The Chicago Tribune review was also very strong, saying that it “stun[s] with its blunt, unsparing and unflinching depictions of family dysfunction among the Jewish-American middle class in Chicago and its suburbs.”

Holds are heavy in libraries where ordering was light.

Michelle Hodkin’s second YA novel, The Evolution of Mara Dyer (S&S YR, 10/23), is her first best seller. It arrives at #8 on the NYT Children’s Chapter Books list this week.

As Hodkin writes on her blog, she is clearly thrilled,

This is especially astonishing to me because The Unbecoming [of Mara Dyer,  S&S YR, 2011] was not a “big” book. There was no major deal. No fortune to fuel the hype machine … A book that many people, if not most, still don’t know how to categorize. I still have trouble describing what it’s about. The odds of a book hitting the New York Times list is low to start, but the odds of books like mine hitting it? Even slimmer.

The LA Times called the first book, an “unsettling paranormal romance [in which] a young girl survives a trauma but discovers she may be going insane.”

The third book in the trilogy will be The Retribution of Mara Dyer, planned for fall, 2013.

Below, Dyer talks about her rapid path to becoming a published author, how the internet has changed that process and the joy she gets from contact with fans through social media.

A side note; the story on her blog about rescuing her beloved dog Maggie, is harrowing, but uplifting.

All four of Kate Morton’s books have appeared on the USA Today best seller list, but the latest one, The Secret Keeper, (S&S/Atria; Brilliance Audio; Center Point Large Print), hits a new high for the author, debuting at #18 this week.

Given 3.5 of 4 stars in last week’s People, it was praised as an ”intriguing mystery, shifting between past and present and among fully realized characters harboring deep secrets.” Booklist said it “will appeal to fans of Daphne du Maurier, Susanna Kearsley, and Audrey Niffenegger with its immensely relatable characters, passion, mystery, and twist ending.”

Many of the big titles of the fall debut on best seller lists this week, but several of summer’s hits continue.

The biggest word-of-mouth hit in recent memory, Gone Girl, (RH/Crown; RH Audio; BOT), is right behind J.K. Rowling’s The Casual Vacancy on the Indie Hardcover Fiction list (expect to see the same story when the NYT list is released later today) and continues to rival it in holds.

As predicted by holds, J.R. Moehringer’s debut novel, Sutton, (Hyperion, 9/25; Hyperion Audio; Thorndike Large Print), arrives on the list, at #13, which puts it below Maria Semple’s “divinely funny” (NYT) summer debut, Where’d You Go, Bernadette, (Hachette/Little, Brown; Hachette Audio; Thorndike Large Type in Dec) still on the list after 7 weeks. Another summer debut, The Light Between Oceans by M.L. Stedman (S&S/Scribner; Large type coming in November from Thorndike) continues at #14.

Just slipping off the Indie Best Seller list this week, Jess Walter’s Beautiful Ruins (Harper, 6/12) continues to show heavy holds (thanks to Liam Hegarty at Westchester County for the alert). It arrived to nearly rapturous reviews in June and rose steadily, peaking at #4 in its tenth week on sale. It moves to the extended list this week.

Brace yourselves — officially licensed “Fifty Shades of Grey” products are about to hit shelves (including a version of the iconic necktie from Van Heusen).

EMI Music hosted a launch party in NYC for a classical music “soundtrack” on Monday, which uses the book’s cover art. It includes 15 classical pieces selected by E.L. James, the trilogy’s author (it should be safe even for those libraries who have shied away from stocking the books).

The VP of Classics at EMI predicts it will sell 15,000 copies in the first week.