Slashdot Mirror
Buying Your Way Onto the NY Times Bestsellers List
Freshly Exhumed writes "An endorsement from Oprah Winfrey; a film deal from Steven Spielberg; a debut at the top of The New York Times bestsellers list. These are the things every author craves most. While the first two require the favor of a benevolent deity, the third can be had by anyone with the ability to write a check — a pretty big one, to ResultSource, a San Diego-based marketing consultancy — in what Forbes says is essentially a laundering operation aimed at deceiving the book-buying public into believing a title is more in-demand than it is. Soren Kaplan, a business consultant and speaker, hired ResultSource to promote his book Leapfrogging. Responding to the WSJ article on his website, Kaplan breaks out the economics of making the list. 'It's no wonder few people in the industry want to talk about bestseller campaigns,' he writes. 'Put bluntly, they allow people with enough money, contacts, and know-how to buy their way onto bestseller lists.'"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I,_Libertine
This book, by Frederick C. Ewing, made the best-seller list in spite of the fact that neither it nor the author even existed. The hoax was perpetrated by Jean Shepherd and his radio audience to protest the way the lists were compiled - this was back in 1956.
WHat makes the submitter think that getting on Oprah's list any different? She takes sponsorships all the damn time, or you think she really presents things of her own choosing all the time? Like saying how awesome Surface was while sending it from her iPad?
Seriously, I'm trying to wonder who would be so naive or child-like to think people with, "...enough money, contacts and know-how..." somehow aren't the ones that accomplish 99% of everything anywhere. That's how it's been since we still wore pelts and threw rocks at one another.
Manipulate the process until you own it. Or be content sitting out of the race.
There are companies that will "buy" your app to get you on the top of apple's charts
Apple has even been cracking down on it
How do you think all those gods-awful L. Ron Hubbard books got on the best seller lists? The cult members were ordered to buy as mony copies as possible of *every single book*, then they would return them to the book store a week later. And if the stores refused them, they'd "contribute" the stores to librraries. They'd especially do this if the libraries had books by former members explaining the cult secrets, to get the demystification books off the shelves, combined with campaigns to steal the demystification books.
Take a good look at the history of "The Scandal of Scientology", published by Paulette Cooper, and how the cult killed that book. Then ask your local librarian about why they have so many copies of Dianetics and Battlefield Earth and any of the L. Ron Hubbard fiction in the last 20 years. (They'd get hundreds of copies from cult members after each new book.) And ask the local bookstore owners, if you can get them to discuss it at all. The cult would even isolate the bookstores that were surveyed for bestseller lists and aim members at *those* bookstores, although modern data collection has made this more difficult to aim. (It's easier now to collect the data from *all* bookstores and directly from publishers.)
I have also seen another effect through team building. Some writes a book, often gibberish, but then consultants use it to market team building or efficiency seminars. Every seminar involves dozens of books, which generate revenue for the author. Of course, if the seminars are going to be successful, the book must have been a best seller. An upfront investment of $100K, and maybe the cost of ghost writer, can generate years of income.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
Look at someone like Ann Coulter. Her target audience wouldn't bother to read the book, so why does it become a best seller? Because that part is engineered. The lets Coulter and her ilk make their money on public appearances. An ingenious scam, and doesn't even require writing ability.
Rich people bend the rules?
Say it ain't so!
It has long been acknowledged that the "Best Seller" lists limit themselves to certain genres anyhow. For instance, romances and science fiction books which actually outsell many mainstream "best sellers" simply don't appear on the big best seller lists.
I tend to think of best seller lists as being of interest to people buying books in airports, and not much else.
Three Squirrels
The Criminal Cult of Scientology has been doing this for decades. The only surprise is how long it took others to start.
It is pretty obvious that a printer cannot know that a book will be on a best seller list before it is printed and there is no way to print covers retroactively. Yet, lots of people probably get fooled by it.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
Most books and movies are the same. Look at half the scifi books on amazon. Humans fighting aliens for some reason
Is that really all you see in SciFi books?
These are not documentaries to teach you facts -- so a second book that has humans fighting aliens is not a repeat. It's about the delivery -- good plot and/or mystery, interesting character development, etc.
The aliens are sometimes (in good books, anyway) there just to provide a little more freedom in story-telling
So the most important writing skill to learn is how to write a check? WooHoo! I'm qualified to be a best selling be author!
No. The trick is to damp the natural resonances of the check.
Only the 1% wore pelts. The rest were in loincloths or naked. Now go out and hunt me some more pelts...
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
It's not quite enough. The problem is people remain convinced that they should continue to take the list seriously. The big publishing houses trumpet it on book jackets, other reviewers continue to reference it, TV shows continue to reference it. It's part of a self-referential promotional engine that shows no sign of collapsing.
John
Scholars will tell you there are only 8 to 18 (depending on the scholar) unique plots in all of human civilization.
Given the sheer number of stories we tell on a daily basis let alone all history...some overlap should hardly be surprising.
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
I cannot think of a single book purchase I've made in the last 25 years that was in any way related to any top ten list. I think I may glance at the NYT's list maybe once every year or two, and about the most I get out of it is "Oh yeah, there's that book I read."
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Most books and movies are the same. Look at half the scifi books on amazon. Humans fighting aliens for some reason
Yeah. Every book I've read is just a sequence of words, one after the other. All the same!
Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean there isn't an invisible demon about to eat your face
If you read a book that was on the list, you were influenced. Those ratings affect everything, including whether or not they showed up on the shelves at your local bookstore, on the end cap at your local grocery store, or in an airport convenience store.
It's the buyers for those businesses who use that list to make purchasing decisions. Those are the folks who put power in the list.
John
Do people actually run out to buy a book just because Oprah reviewed it? Really?
Yes, yes.
Oprah and I have almost NOTHING in common.
Well, your DNA is damned near identical. I mean, compared to a sea cucumber.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
I cannot think of a single book purchase I've made in the last 25 years that was in any way related to any top ten list.
You are not the publishing chain's customer. Bookbuyers are much lower down the food chain than that.
Vendors are the target of these paid endorsements. The books that appear on that NYT list are far more likely appear in newsagents and booksellers as a result. Your opportunities to buy are preselected based on list like this.
Think of yourself as krill instead of whale...
"I've got more toys than Teruhisa Kitahara."
"Do people actually run out to buy a book just because Oprah reviewed it? Really?"
Yes, really, see the The Oprah Effect
AccountKiller
So what's left? Ever hear the one about judging a book by its cover? Well, that's what the cover is for. It's an advertisement. It's got a pretty picture by somebody who may or may not have read the book but is more likely just working from a description of what the author and their publishing company agreed ought to be on there. Because seriously, that guy's an artist and he has to make a living. He doesn't have time to read fiction fergoshsakes. And there's the publisher-approved and paid-for blurbs describing how awesome the author is and how touching or exciting the story is. It's all a PR machine, every bit of it.
There are only a couple of things that are halfway reliable as indicators -- recommendations from PEOPLE YOU KNOW and the name of the author. Because if the author wrote another really good book you at least know that person is CAPABLE of writing a good book. But even that isn't so great. I've often read second and third books by authors who had previously done good work only to find their latest novel or installment in a series was utter shit.
I..
Slashdot, where the first-person anecdote is still tirelessly trumpeted at evidence.
(Hint: Its not about you.)
BTW, never say "never".
Seriously, I'm trying to wonder who would be so naive or child-like to think people with, "...enough money, contacts and know-how..." somehow aren't the ones that accomplish 99% of everything anywhere. That's how it's been since we still wore pelts and threw rocks at one another.
Manipulate the process until you own it. Or be content sitting out of the race.
It's why we invented things like democracy and taxes. They limit the absolute abuses of the 1%.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it