Interesting article that describes in numerous examples how strategic bulk purchases of books are used to artificially boost their ranking.
Books that both quickly appear on and vanish from the list are practically guaranteed to have doctored sales.
For example an author might give speeches before the publication date and stipulate that his fee is to be paid in book purchases. When the big day comes all those pre-sales count and the book is an immediate hit.
I’m not that interested in the New York Times best seller list itself but it was exciting to find out what happens behind the scenes.
Anybody have similar articles for the App Store ranking lists?
After the William Peter Blatty lawsuit, in which the NYTimes admitted that its best-selling numbers are "editorial" in nature, i.e., made up, I don't know why anyone pays attention to the list at all.
The list is fiction.
Interestingly enough, the lawsuit wasn't mentioned in the article.
I would be curious to know if this has changed in the past 39 years.
Edit: I'd also be curious to read the actual testimony. The wiki blurb in that link is vague enough that one could argue it refers to some of the editorial decisions that are referenced in the Esquire piece that this thread is about:
>Although the list claims to be a numerical ranking with full autonomy from The New York Times Book Review, some of the sources I spoke with believe that an element of editorial curation must be at play. “To my knowledge, The New York Times tracks sales of books, and the sales are what is ‘supposed to’ decide where those books sit on the list. However, the truth is, it's much more editorialized,” Sarah*, a book publicist who has worked at two Big Five houses, suggested to me. “There is quite a bit taken into consideration—i.e., are the book sales mostly bulk buys? Are they mostly indie bookstore sales? Are they mostly Amazon sales? Even which list the book would be considered for has a huge effect.” For example, whether a book is considered for the Hardcover Nonfiction weekly list or the Advice, How-To, & Miscellaneous weekly list might affect whether it becomes a best seller at all.
The NYT best seller list became much less prestigious in my eyes when I found out it wasn't even just a single list; there's a best seller's list for basically every genre of book, including pretty niche genres like comedy.
It's not like there's a comedy book that sells in massive numbers coming out every month, so if you come out with one and can even sell like a few hundred copies you can become a "NYT best-selling author" and slap a big shiny label on the cover of the book going forward.
The weird thing is that I always felt that the NYT Best seller lists had this air of intellectualism about it. If you made that list, your book is popular with a more “high class crowd” than say, the number one on Amazon or best selling book in Walmart.
In reality, NYT tries really hard to reflect popular opinion and not some elite opinion.
Does anybody else have the same misconception or is it just me?
Intellectuals will go to different sources, among them including international sources as the US books industry is especially US-centric. In the US, one source for intellectuals is the New York Review of Books (not to be confused with the NYT Sunday Book Review supplement). Curious to hear where others go.
It strikes me as a type of publishing house literary participation trophy.
You either write textbooks, self publish or the author is a "New York Times best selling author".
Interesting article that describes in numerous examples how strategic bulk purchases of books are used to artificially boost their ranking.
Books that both quickly appear on and vanish from the list are practically guaranteed to have doctored sales.
For example an author might give speeches before the publication date and stipulate that his fee is to be paid in book purchases. When the big day comes all those pre-sales count and the book is an immediate hit.
I’m not that interested in the New York Times best seller list itself but it was exciting to find out what happens behind the scenes.
Anybody have similar articles for the App Store ranking lists?