How did “Handbook for Mortals” get on the NYT bestseller list?
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Re: How did “Handbook for Mortals” get on the NYT bestseller list?
#2I'm sure why this is news, the NYT Bestseller List has always be gamed. Usually the books are decent and true good books linger, but getting there has always been a $$ game
Re: How did “Handbook for Mortals” get on the NYT bestseller list?
#3I'm sure why this is news, the NYT Bestseller List has always be gamed. Usually the books are decent and true good books linger, but getting there has always been a $$ game
Probably because it's about a small unknown (non-existent?) publisher and a book that barely exists. Yes, big publishing houses definitely game the system so their marquee authors get on the list, but this is a sort of low-level hack.
Re: How did “Handbook for Mortals” get on the NYT bestseller list?
#4I'm sure why this is news, the NYT Bestseller List has always be gamed. Usually the books are decent and true good books linger, but getting there has always been a $$ game
Yeah, this practice goes back literally decades: L. Ron Hubbard was ordering Scientologists to buy his books and prop them up on the NYT Bestseller List in the 1950s. This guy sounds pretty out of the loop if he thinks this is a new phenomenon.
Re: How did “Handbook for Mortals” get on the NYT bestseller list?
#5I'm sure why this is news, the NYT Bestseller List has always be gamed. Usually the books are decent and true good books linger, but getting there has always been a $$ game
According to the article:
> Nowadays, you can make the bestseller list with about 5,000 sales.
That sounds pretty cheap. For a book that costs $10-20 that would be $50-100K to buy your way in. I'm not sure what the margins for books are these days (particularly the split between publisher and retailer) but that doesn't seem that expensive.
Re: How did “Handbook for Mortals” get on the NYT bestseller list?
#6I'm sure why this is news, the NYT Bestseller List has always be gamed. Usually the books are decent and true good books linger, but getting there has always been a $$ game
I wish I knew how to find the article, but a few months back I read something that backed the other commenters: a large number of the NYT Bestsellers buy their way on. As I recall, the publisher sends a bunch of books out to stores, buys them, and kind of "seeds the tip jar" to bestseller status, which then generates enough to pay for the initial buy-in.
I'm mangling what was a good explanation, but the answer to the question of the headline is, "yeah, probably, just like a lot of others".
(Small pedantic note: your opening sentence should read "I'm NOT sure why...")
Re: How did “Handbook for Mortals” get on the NYT bestseller list?
#7I always assumed that the NYT Bestseller List was a marketing vehicle that you could buy into. Not that it didn't track legitimate "bestsellers." I just figured you could pay to play too. If people really care about knowing that for sure then I guess it's nice to see some actual proof of it.
Re: How did “Handbook for Mortals” get on the NYT bestseller list?
#8I'm sure why this is news, the NYT Bestseller List has always be gamed. Usually the books are decent and true good books linger, but getting there has always been a $$ game
See also "I, Libertine"[1], which started out as a joke (by Jean Shepherd of "A Christmas Story" fame) and made it on to the bestseller list before it had even been written.
Re: How did “Handbook for Mortals” get on the NYT bestseller list?
#9I always assumed that the NYT Bestseller List was a marketing vehicle that you could buy into. Not that it didn't track legitimate "bestsellers." I just figured you could pay to play too. If people really care about knowing that for sure then I guess it's nice to see some actual proof of it.
Re: How did “Handbook for Mortals” get on the NYT bestseller list?
#10That just tells me the system is flawed. Sounds way too easy to game...