
How did “Handbook for Mortals” get on the NYT bestseller list? - cratermoon
http://www.pajiba.com/book_reviews/did-this-book-buy-its-way-onto-the-new-york-times-bestseller-list.php
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pseingatl
Because the NYT bestseller list is essentially not an accurate report, but
"fake news." In 1983 William Peter Blatty, author of The Exorcist, filed a
lawsuit against the NYT for failing to include his book Legion on the list,
despite provable sales. The Times won the lawsuit by claiming that their list
does not in fact reflect bestsellers, but their own editorial opinion as to
what constitutes a bestseller. In other words, they massage and ignore real
data:
[https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&c...](https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=10&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwimqaHy9vHVAhVSZFAKHbvVABAQFghEMAk&url=http%3A%2F%2Fmoney.howstuffworks.com%2F10-trade-
secrets3.htm&usg=AFQjCNEcRDkUWxJOM8YB0AvjbOJ9WRq1iw)

~~~
thanatosmin
Please consider reading the article. It was placed on the list as a
consequence of a scheme to manipulate the sales data—exactly opposite what you
suggest.

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richard_mcp
The NYT bestseller list has been a horrible indicator of what's selling for a
while. You can often see well-known authors make the list weeks before their
books are out due to massive orders by big box stores.

A much better source are Indie Bound's Indie Bestseller lists:
[https://www.indiebound.org/indie-
bestsellers](https://www.indiebound.org/indie-bestsellers). While still able
to be gamed, these lists are compiled based off of sales by independent
booksellers. I've often found the books here to be better quality than the NYT
bestsellers.

~~~
craswell
Handbook for Mortals is currently #4 on Indie Bound's Children's Interest
Bestsellers list :/

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lukasschwab
This sort metrics-buying isn't unique to books:

The RIAA changed its rules so Jay-Z's 'Magna Carta Holy Grail' would go
platinum _instantly_ after Samsung bought one million copies to give away to
its users: [http://pitchfork.com/news/51392-riaa-changes-gold-and-
platin...](http://pitchfork.com/news/51392-riaa-changes-gold-and-platinum-
rules-due-to-jay-zs-magna-carta-holy-grail/)

A similar partnership with Sprint meant '4:44' also went platinum almost
immediately, even though it was only distributed on TIDAL:
[https://www.forbes.com/sites/garysuarez/2017/07/05/jay-z-444...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/garysuarez/2017/07/05/jay-z-444-riaa-
platinum/#7b1b60c02e96)

------
sireat
This "buyer" is not going to buy any of the books.

The trick only works because the book is considered published yet it is out of
stock so has to be back ordered.

And these back orders still count for the NYT bestseller list.

My guess is they somehow triggered some sort of last second revision for their
own book at the publisher thus pausing the printing.

So the book is technically published and available in various catalogs yet you
can't actually buy it. You can only back-order it.

I assume if you could actually order the book the "buyer" would have to shell
out some cash.

An additional trick is that the "buyer" is being careful not to trigger bulk
buying clause for each store.

It is basically the click farm equivalent online.

~~~
dsr_
When the Ch\wrch of Sc\w+nt\wl\wgy did this they actually had their cultists
pay for the books. Most of them were then sold to second-hand book stores.

Because money actually came through to them, Waldenbooks and B. Dalton were
happy to order enough to keep up with the fake demand.

~~~
PhasmaFelis
> _the Ch\wrch of Sc\w+nt\wl\wgy_

What's going on here?

~~~
scarmig
You can get into trouble if you speak ill of the Ch*rch in public. This
hinders discoverability.

~~~
AndrewKemendo
Trouble with who? The Church? I'm familiar with their weirdo bullying tactics
but you can't really take them seriously - they have no power.

~~~
rmc
There was a time in the 90s when Scientology was the main target of internet
censorship, and they (mis)used copyright law to hinder criticism and to hide
what they did.

South Park broadcast all the details of Xenu in 2005, which made it much
easier for other former Scientologists (e.g. Kate Bornstein) to talk about it.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientology_and_the_Internet](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientology_and_the_Internet)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trapped_in_the_Closet_(South_P...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trapped_in_the_Closet_\(South_Park\))

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ilamont
Indie publisher here. There have been strange things going on in the last year
with best-seller lists, not only in the NYT but also USA Today and Amazon,
often relating to ebook "box sets" that have coordinated marketing and borrow
campaigns set up around them. See the following resources/discussions:

[http://www.thepassivevoice.com/2017/04/the-bestseller-
list-b...](http://www.thepassivevoice.com/2017/04/the-bestseller-list-box-set-
gig/)

[http://www.kboards.com/index.php/topic,250491.125.html](http://www.kboards.com/index.php/topic,250491.125.html)

I am not sure if the TFA example is connected to box set scams, though.

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geofft
From 2013:

[https://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffbercovici/2013/02/22/heres-...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffbercovici/2013/02/22/heres-
how-you-buy-your-way-onto-the-new-york-times-bestsellers-list/)

 _ResultSource, a San Diego-based marketing consultancy, specializes in
getting books onto bestseller lists, according to The Wall Street Journal. For
clients willing to pay enough, it will even guarantee a No. 1 spot. It does
this by taking bulk sales and breaking them up into more organic-looking
individual purchases, defeating safeguards that are supposed to make it
impossible to "buy" bestseller status._

One of the methods they use is getting people who show up to talks to get a
copy of the book, I guess because you can stuff the price of the book into the
price of the ticket. (I have a book at home I got from attending a Pop-Up
Magazine show, for which tickets were a bit pricier than I would have liked. I
haven't opened it yet.)

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andrewhillman
I _believe_ NYT has a bookstore list for reporting orders. This is how the
best selling books make it on this list. The buyer (someone tied to the book)
probably knew the store was on the NYT list and made a massive order. The NYT
will need to tweak things going forward. Any store telling people they are on
the NYT Best Seller reporting list should be removed from the list.

~~~
cratermoon
The story specifically mentions that there were suspicious calls asking if a
store was a NYT reporting store, followed by bulk orders with no delivery
date.

~~~
andrewhillman
I was scratching my head because I didn't recall reading this. After dinner, I
grabbed a glass of wine and I went back and read beyond the first 5 paragraphs
plus the embedded tweets.You gotta do what you good do but don't get caught.

------
schnevets
During the article, I wondered what the writer's end goal was. Then I saw that
she wants to portray the lead in a movie version, and I can only assume this
will be some Neil Breen-level, awesomely-bad garbage.

~~~
csours
Neil Breen, explained:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KolenE1GCyg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KolenE1GCyg)
(NSFW audio, probably NSFW video)

~~~
AndrewKemendo
God bless both of you for introducing me to Neil Breen

~~~
ada1981
Incredible.

------
dopamean
I 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.

~~~
tysone
Methodology: [https://www.nytimes.com/books/best-
sellers/methodology/](https://www.nytimes.com/books/best-sellers/methodology/)

~~~
dopamean
Thanks! I probably should have looked for this myself...

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rcthompson
The consensus I've seen from people in the publishing industry is that lots of
books buy their way onto the NYT bestseller list, but this one is just being
much less subtle about it.

~~~
ada1981
I like this one better than people shelling out $200k to make the list because
they exploited a bug in the system -- this didn't cost anything outside the
manpower to place these orders which will never go through or be charged.

~~~
arthurjj
Thank you. The article is treating the NYT bestseller list as sacrosanct.
Someone figured a (relatively) cheap way to hack it. Good for them.

As someone who just published a children's book if I thought this would work I
would try it.

~~~
PhasmaFelis
It's a scam regardless of how cheap it was. It sounds like you're trying
justify the fact you'd be willing to do the same scam.

~~~
ada1981
Years ago I became aware of how many wealthy people and "best-selling authors"
bought their way onto the NY Times list and how even people with publishing
deals are often "encouraged" to use their advances to use companies like
ResultsSource.

Since the entire thing seems to be a scam to me I like this one because of
it's elegance. Why bother _even selling the books_ or paying Results Source
when you can just put it in a few hundred orders for 30 books across various
independent stores.

------
briandear
It Seems like some sort of Neilson Ratings System would be more representative
than basing it purely on sales.

Or lower the bulk threshold to one. Meaning a single sale of a title “counts”
while >1 sales in a transaction counts as 1.

Buying 5 copies of one book doesn’t mean it’s being sold (or willingly read
by) to 5 distinct people. So it’s popularity is really just “1” because only
one person actually bought it.

That would be much harder to game since they would have to have a lot of
single transactions to move the needle. Buying 29 at a time ought not count as
29 sales even though it technically IS 29 sales. But the intent of the
Bestseller list is to determine popularity, not necessarily “units moved”
otherwise, why disqualify bulk sales? Those ARE sales right? But the NY Times
does have a bulk purchase flag which means the list isn’t about volume, but
about perceived popularity.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
Our pastor bought our whole (small) congregation a particular book to read a
little while back, it seems equally to fail to report that as a sale of 1;
just as much as registering the publisher buying their own book a hundred
(thousand, ...) times.

... Cue a book buying app that reimburses the first n people to buy a book and
scan the sales receipt in order to provide "genuine" sales for skewing
popularity lists.

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rodgerd
Spike Trottman's tweets around this present some interesting points:
[https://twitter.com/Iron_Spike/status/900797323403554817](https://twitter.com/Iron_Spike/status/900797323403554817)

Mot notably: this has been used as a tactic to get books and comics optioned
for films (which will make more money than selling books ever does), and the
author is a no-name actor who - surprise! - is angling to play the lead in the
film of her #1 bestselling novel.

~~~
thanatropism
How are movie options priced? Anything close to a "real options" approach?

~~~
rodgerd
AFAIK being optioned gives you a chunk of cash - you're selling an exclusive,
sometimes time-limited, right for the studio to make the movie. If the movie
doesn't get made, you still get to keep the money.

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danso
Apparently the NYT released a new list, sans "Handbook for Mortals":
[https://twitter.com/cupcakeandy/status/900830696226381826](https://twitter.com/cupcakeandy/status/900830696226381826)

Direct link: [https://www.nytimes.com/books/best-sellers/young-adult-
hardc...](https://www.nytimes.com/books/best-sellers/young-adult-hardcover/)

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rshlo
[https://www.amazon.com/charts](https://www.amazon.com/charts)

Amazon charts are much more useful.

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ProAm
I'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

~~~
koolba
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.

~~~
briandear
5000 sales at a reporting store. So that probably represents 50,000 actual
books sold since not every store reports.

I think Nate Silver ought to do some work on this area; it would be
interesting to read his analysis.

~~~
jstanley
It represents 50,000 actual books sold if the demand is legitimate. If you
make sure to only buy from reporting stores, it's only 5,000 actual books
sold.

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banned1
"Buying your way onto the bestseller list is not technically illegal, nor is
it that hard if you know how. Many CONSERVATIVE publishers have found success
through bulk-buying books then giving them away as, say, subscriber gifts if
you sign up to Newsmax or the like. "

hmmm, conservative only? Biased much? Is the strategy of buying placement
somehow undiscovered by publishers of liberal persuasion?

~~~
refulgentis
Yes, seriously. You're playing looser with definitions, but in the sense they
used conservative, yes.

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thjan
Wow, the goodreads rating got fixed fast:
[https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/35800325-handbook-for-
mo...](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/35800325-handbook-for-mortals)

~~~
hownottowrite
I love the fact that the author rated her own book five stars.
[https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2076269822?book_show_a...](https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2076269822?book_show_action=true)

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neves
btw, YA is Young Adult literature. I've never heard about this jargon.

~~~
gcp
Thanks, I was totally confused as it's mentioned several times yet never
explained in the first paragraphs.

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Havoc
That just tells me the system is flawed. Sounds way too easy to game...

