Why Doesn't Sci-Fi Hit the Bestseller Lists?

Pomeranian writes "Sci fi readers often deplore book bestseller lists -- because review editors actively ignore many sci-fi sales, since they don't consider that stuff "popular", even though sci-fi titles often sell in far greater numbers than "serious" highbrow lit. But this all might change soon, with the launch of Bookscan: New technology that tracks actual sales at the cash register with greater precision than ever before. When similar technology launched in the music industry ten years ago, it proved the popularity of "new country" and hip-hop overnight. This story in the Washington Post wonders: Will Bookscan do the same thing to sci-fi? NOTE: this is a *shameless* self-aggrandizing plug, because I wrote the Washington Post story! But I figured it'd be of particular interest to Slashdot readers" CD: While I'd love to see lists that are more reflective of reality, I don't think that a pure unadulterated list is in the interest of the reading public. When I worked at Waldenbooks many moons ago, we would commonly receive copies of one book, Dianetics, from the publisher, with our (And our competitors) sales stickers already on them. While this was an extreme case, it does serve as a cautionary tale about the lengths some will go to manipulate the numbers.

Comments

Re:Please explain (Dianetics)

[dr_eaerth]

What does this mean? Having never worked at a bookstore, I don't know what it means for a book to come with sales stickers on....

The book was Dianetics, which is the big Scientologist book. The reason they show up at bookstores with price stickers already on them is because of the Scientologists' bestseller plan:

1) Everyone goes out and buys Dianetics.
2) Give the copies of Dianetics to the "church."
3) The church ships the books back out to retail stores.

The end product is that Dianetics goes sky-high in the bestseller lists, without costing the church typical manufacturing costs. And bookstores get copies of the book already with sales stickers on.

I use "THE INTERNET TOP 100 SF/FANTASY LIST"

[IvyMike]

I see a few people complaining that there's not enough good science fiction out now; I beg to differ. Off the top of my head, Egan, Vinge, and Bear have all written some great books in the past few years; and have you ever read "Ribofunk" by di Filippo?

For years I've been using the THE INTERNET TOP 100 SF/FANTASY LIST as my reference as to what science fiction I should be reading. It's not as flighty as a "current bestsellers" list is, but new books do work onto the list in due time. And most of the books on the list really do deserve to be there. Over the past five years, I've managed to read probably about half of the books on the list, and have an idea about most of the others. No small task, because the list does change over time. (Although looking at it now, I see a few names I don't recognize, which means it's time to start doing more reading).

Re:How can you think this is a good thing?

[Macrobat]

I was wondering about this myself, but the impression I got was that most courts have actually sided against the government and for the privacy and confidentiality of citizens and public libraries. Even Kenneth Starr got into trouble for trying to force a bookstore to hand over records of sale that might have shown that Monica Lewinsky bought a book that she later gave as a gift to Clinton. Lewinsky later gave the records over anyway, though.

But the Colorado Supreme court just unanimously overturned a lower court's decision forcing Tattered Cover to turn over records for an investigation by a Denver-area drug task force. And the protections for public libraries are even stronger than the ones enjoyed by bookstores.