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The Washington Post's bestseller lists have been wrong

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Re: The Washington Post's bestseller lists have been wrong

#71

Post by pessimizer »

freehunter wrote: post #61
pessimizer wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why should you care about the bestseller lists? This is an alternative if you want to get some insight into the thought process of these (terrible) people. Also these three people are examples; the point is that some public people that you may care about recommend books, and that is a way to discover books.

>thought process of these (terrible) people Whoa that is some casually thrown-in hardcore judgement.

I only said it because I meant it. Booklists from people one admires (or detests) are a good place to check to discover new books, though.

I also suggest bibliographies and references in things that you are currently reading. That's usually where I find the next things to read. Especially with journal articles, because you can find other things that cite a paper you enjoyed pretty easily on the web.

Re: The Washington Post's bestseller lists have been wrong

#72

Post by m463 »

CobrastanJorji wrote: post #63
peterlk wrote: post #22

Here's how "Best Sellers" become a thing: Publishers count the number of books they sell. This seems pretty simple, right? It is, but as a consequence, easily gamed. Publishers don't sell to you and me, they sell to book stores. So, you create some marketing to get people to preorder your book from a lots of different book stores. Book sellers inform the number of copies based, in part, on preorder numbers. There are…

You left out my favorite trick: politics! For example, say that you're running for President, and you want your campaign book to be a "top 10 list" best seller. Well, just have your campaign pre-order 4,000 or so copies of the book. That plus 1000 or so real sales will be enough to get you into the top 10 list, and at only about $55,000, it's practically a steal. Even better, the proceeds come right back to you becau…

Scientology did one better - they bought their own books at retail, then fed them back into the distribution chain. It was common for "new" books to arrive with price tags still on them.

Re: The Washington Post's bestseller lists have been wrong

#73

Post by justinph »

hirundo wrote: post #5

Kudos to the Post for attempting to produce an objective list. The New York Times doesn't: > In other words, The New York Times best-seller list is not a best-seller list -- which even The New York Times once acknowledged. In the early 1980s, William Peter Blatty, author of the monumental best-seller "The Exorcist," sued The New York Times for only listing his novel on the list one time, even though it sold in the mi…

The Times makes it clear what their methodology is: https://www.nytimes.com/books/best-sellers/methodology

One anecdote posted on a conservative website is hardly a debunking of The Times' 75+ year history of best sellers lists.

Re: The Washington Post's bestseller lists have been wrong

#74

Post by briandear »

justinph wrote: post #73
hirundo wrote: post #5

Kudos to the Post for attempting to produce an objective list. The New York Times doesn't: > In other words, The New York Times best-seller list is not a best-seller list -- which even The New York Times once acknowledged. In the early 1980s, William Peter Blatty, author of the monumental best-seller "The Exorcist," sued The New York Times for only listing his novel on the list one time, even though it sold in the mi…

The Times makes it clear what their methodology is: https://www.nytimes.com/books/best-sellers/methodology One anecdote posted on a conservative website is hardly a debunking of The Times' 75+ year history of best sellers lists.

> Institutional, special interest, group or bulk purchases, if and when they are included, are at the discretion of The New York Times Best-Seller List Desk editors based on standards for inclusion that encompass proprietary vetting and audit protocols, corroborative reporting and other statistical determinations.

So basically, they use editorial discretion when ranking bulk sales. Which means they are prone to exclude books they don’t like and include books they do like. Excluding some bulk sales but not others isn’t objective. Institutional and bulk sales should all be excluded from the counts.

Re: The Washington Post's bestseller lists have been wrong

#75

Post by rsj_hn »

rosser wrote: post #11
ilamont wrote: post #3

These lists can be manipulated. There was a case a few years back involving bogus bookstore sales of Lani Sarem’s "Handbook for Mortals" to trick the New York Times: Stamper and other YA writers, including Jeremy West, began to investigate. Stamper shared messages he had received from bookshop staff who said they had been contacted to see if their store was an NYT-reporting shop – the paper’s lists are collated from…

A friend used to work for an organization whose function was to buy books from NYT-reporting sellers for purposes of inflating the sales numbers of a given title, to manipulate it onto the bestseller list. They were usually paid by the publishers, but sometimes directly by the authors themselves. This has been going on for a very long time. EDIT: Phrasing.

WOW, can I ask what the most common genre was?

Re: The Washington Post's bestseller lists have been wrong

#76

Post by spikels »

chillwaves wrote: post #66
jammygit wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure why the downvotes. If a news provider can’t promise to try to tell the truth in a legally binding way, but just claims to be editorializing, it’s no wonder there is so much public distrust of the news.

> If a news provider can’t promise to try to tell the truth in a legally binding way which news provider does this?

You see the point then...

Re: The Washington Post's bestseller lists have been wrong

#77

Post by manigandham »

Tushon wrote: post #12
huffmsa wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the same publication staring down a $250m libel lawsuit for their inability to fact check before publishing. You expect too much from them.

That was dismissed recently, with a handy summary from the judge: The judge who oversaw the case, William O. Bertlesman, said in his dismissal, "The Court accepts Sandmann's statement that, when he was standing motionless in the confrontation with Phillips, his intent was to calm the situation and not to impede or block anyone. However, Phillips did not see it that way. He concluded that he was being 'blocked' and no…

The dismissal has issues and contradictions that several major lawyers and even other judges have pointed out, for example it was dismissed before any evidence was even adduced. Many of the claims the dismissal relies are on exactly the claims which would've been tested in court.

I highly recommend this video as a good overview of the issues: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iSRVnvfD6Cc

Re: The Washington Post's bestseller lists have been wrong

#78

Post by gingabriska »

NicoJuicy wrote: post #31
chc wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That seems like an even more questionable tool for deciding what to read than a best-seller list. Those guys are renowned for starting tech companies that made lots of money, not for their outstanding taste in books.

They are also very smart, which made them read/like interesting books. If they read books ofc, in these cases they obviously do

>They are also very smart, which made them read/like interesting books.

This logic doesn't take us anywhere because there existed equally intelligent people who either worked in farm or meatshop or even might be working as a janitor instead of launching companies worth billions and recommending othes books.

And does being intelligent means not being evil? What if they posted these books to distract you while they go around reading something else which helps them build competitive advantage against masses.

I won't blind accept a reading suggestion from someone even if they happen to be commerically successful or they happen to be smarter.

Re: The Washington Post's bestseller lists have been wrong

#79

Post by billfruit »

QuinnWilton wrote: post #29
adeelk93 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Discovery is challenging, how would you propose finding something new to read?

By sticking to the classics and letting time act as your filter.

This is by far the most insightful comment on this thread. Especially for fiction and poetry, which like opera and classical music, the we're presently in a period of creative lullness, and seemingly nothing that compares with the grandeur of works from the 19th century ever comes up these days.

Re: The Washington Post's bestseller lists have been wrong

#80

Post by pjc50 »

huffmsa wrote: post #39
pjc50 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wins against newspapers for libel are extremely rare in First Amendment country.

But we've also never been at a point in history where a "respectable" publication can blast erroneous information out at the scale the Post did. They might not lose the in a trial, but there needs to be reconning of some sort which breaks the assumed trust we've developed with antiquated publications.

America loves its fake news, that's why Alex Jones was popular for years. He was able to lie freely about anything and anyone until finally libelling the Sandy Hook survivors was too much.
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