Confession: I am guilty of this. Well, sort of. I actually did write a book, and it did sell more than 3 copies, and now I put "best selling author" on my resume, on account of my book being #1 in its category (sometimes) and #1 on oreilly.com (sometimes).
So far no one has gotten bent out of shape about it (or maybe no one has looked at my resume), I assume because they're smart enough to know that a "best selling" data science book is not on the NYT list outselling Stephen King and 50 Shades of Gray and Hunger Games, it's bestselling among "Books / Computers / Data & Data Analytics" or whatever.
Having put my bias on the table, I have a hard time getting worked up about what this guy did, for the following reason:
"Whoa, you're a bestselling author? What did you write?"
"It's not a book, it's a picture of my foot."
"Oh. That's kind of strange. How many copies did it sell?"
"Three."
"..."
I mean, it's not like there's some kind of special club where "best selling author" allows you to cut in line or anything. Is there? If there is, please let me know.
Slightly off topic, but your book is awesome. I'd highly recommend it to anyone who knows Python (or programming in general) but for whom math-notation-heavy stats/ML books are daunting.
My first pass through was a while back, but I still find myself going back to the example code for quick refreshers about key concepts.
Well isn't that the point of the article. Showing how absurd this is and shaming the "I'll make you a bestselling author" snake oil sales people?
I love that he explicitly names some of the offenders.
So far no one has gotten bent out of shape about it (or maybe no one has looked at my resume), I assume because they're smart enough to know that a "best selling" data science book is not on the NYT list outselling Stephen King and 50 Shades of Gray and Hunger Games, it's bestselling among "Books / Computers / Data & Data Analytics" or whatever.
Having put my bias on the table, I have a hard time getting worked up about what this guy did, for the following reason:
"Whoa, you're a bestselling author? What did you write?" "It's not a book, it's a picture of my foot." "Oh. That's kind of strange. How many copies did it sell?" "Three." "..."
I mean, it's not like there's some kind of special club where "best selling author" allows you to cut in line or anything. Is there? If there is, please let me know.