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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

#91

Post by horsawlarway »

trentnix wrote: post #16
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…

Does that apply to the rest of paper as well?

It applies to nearly every organization that's been advertising itself as news for easily the last 20+ years.

They are all - every last one of them - suddenly nothing but editorial opinion and entertainment as soon as they show up in a courtroom.

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

#92

Post by rosser »

rsj_hn wrote: post #75
rosser wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

I didn't ask, but in the conversations we had on the topic, I never got the sense that was a thing that mattered to them.

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

#93

Post by kevstev »

adeelk93 wrote: post #8
twerkinggumby wrote: post #4

They should just get rid of bestseller lists. They exist purely for marketing and for tricking chumps into buying mediocre books.

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

I think the key is looking for longevity. A book at the top of a bestseller list for a week is a mere blip. Books start catching my attention when I seem them out there for about 3 months- its not some flash in the pan or selling just because the author previously wrote a good book. Around 6 months, you start getting stuff that is almost certainly going to at least be entertaining. If something has been on the list a year or more, this is likely going to be a thought provoking book and something highly enjoyable. This scale has never really let me down- except maybe in the case of The Alchemist. That was such a miss and the language just so... vapid... that I actually downloaded a copy off the internet just to see if I got a bootleg mistranslated version or something. I read tons of books, 99/100+ times a book on the NYTimes Bestseller list for more than 6 months has been worth its time to read.

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

#95

Post by rocqua »

camillomiller wrote: post #94
rocqua wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For which security?

I guess the joke wasn’t clear enough: https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bloomberg.com/amp/opinion/a...

I actually wondered whether it was a reference to Matt Levine. Does literally every HN reader also read his news-letter?

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

#96

Post by NicoJuicy »

gingabriska wrote: post #78
NicoJuicy wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

So people post book reviews to distract you from doing something. Lol.

I still have a bigger respect for people that started a multi billion dollar company than a janitor. It doesn't mean I have no respect for them, but just a bigger one for someone that did something unique.

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