It’s a brand new year but the more things change, the more they stay the same.  This was the case for the Most Downloaded titles in the month of December.  Very few new titles managed to hop onto any of the lists globally for the first time.  We did, however, reaffirm something else we already knew:  We talked in November about releasing a new book as a means to sell your old content, but in December we learned you could also just release a movie.

Stieg Larsson is the obvious beneficiary here as his entire The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo trilogy reappeared back onto the Most Downloaded lists in the USA (where the series namesake is the No. 2 Audiobook and each of the three titles are on the top eBook list) and Canada (all three titles are in the top 10 Most Downloaded eBooks).

Michael Morpurgo also took advantage of a movie release, as his title War Horse hit No. 1 on the Most Downloaded list in the UK for Audiobook and eBook, as well as becoming the Most Downloaded Audiobook in Australia. Benjamin Mee came in with the No. 6 most downloaded Audiobook in the US in accordance with the release of the film version of his We Bought a Zoo. I actually would have thought we’d see more of this title, after all, who doesn’t love Matt Damon?

In other Most Downloaded news, Michael Connelly’s The Drop was scattered about multiple lists as it reached No. 1 as the most downloaded Audiobook in Canada and appeared on the same list in the US, as well as the eBook list in Australia. Patricia Cornwell’s new title, Red Mist, made its Most Downloaded debut in the US and Canadian Audiobook lists and, per Kevin’s suggestion in the comment space of last month’s Most Downloaded blog, Explosive Eighteen has now added eBook Most Downloaded lists in the US and Canada to its résumé.

Noteworthy contributors to the UK and Australian list this past month were once again Julian Barnes (The Sense of an Ending), Nora Roberts (The Next Always and Chasing Fire) and Elizabeth Gilbert (Eat, Pray, Love).

2012 will bring about a huge boom in eBook and Audiobook checkouts, it’ll be great to see some new names on the lists moving forward.  Happy New Year!

The Most Downloaded Books from the Library lists are organized by subject and format, and compiled based on activity at more than 18,000 libraries in the OverDrive global network. You can view these lists and add the titles to your collection in Content Reserve.

Jason Sockel is a Collection Development Associate at OverDrive.