The Truth and My Opinion About Best Sellers Lists by Karla Stover

 

Visit Karla's BWL Author page for book and purchase information

By the same author:

A Line to Murder                            a Puget Sound Murder

Murder: When One Isn't Enough   a Puget Sound / Hood Canal Murder

Wynter's Way                                  a gothic mystery   

Parlor Girls                                    the story of the Everleigh sisters, world-famous madams

BWL Publishing Inc.

Every week I am mailed the New York Times best sellers lists for fiction and non-fiction. According to vox.com, to get on the list you have to sell between 5,000 and 10,000 books in a week.  But who you sell to is important. I don't take much credence in the lists so lets review.

My most recent nonfiction list had the following: books by Prince Harry and  Michelle Obama, one by a movie star and another by a radio personality, one by a poet, and one by a democratic congresswoman. Stephen Hawking's final theory is apparently popular enough with the book-buying public to be on the list as is something co-written by Oprah. Also included is a biography of LeBron James, books on the KKK, the Texas Rangers and frontier justice, poverty, longevity and the offensively-named, I'm Glad My Mother Died. Except for the last one, most of these are givens. Is there one title/topic/author here who would be ignored by libraries? I'd like to think the last one would, but apparently not. And Prince Harry, Michelle and LeBron were probably also picked up by bookstores, in fact most likely all of  them were, but in what amounts?

The fiction list has books by authors who are regularly listed: Barbara Kingsolver, Kate Morton, Harlan Coben and 2 co-written by James Patterson, plus (obviously ) others. So how does  the Times come up with its lists? According to the observer.com it's a closely-guarded secret. What is known is that the paper has its own list of  certain book sellers across the country from which it gathers statistics. And which ones make the cut is a tightly guarded secret. Statistics at the ready, a Times brain trust decides whom they think should be on the list. Quoting the observer.com, "this is done to keep people from gaming the system, which is partially true. But it’s also done so that The New York Times can have a say about which books get the extra credibility of being named a bestseller.

"NPD BookScan™ is the gold standard in POS tracking for the publishing market. It covers approximately 85 percent of trade print books sold in the U.S., through direct reporting from all major retailers, including Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Walmart, Target, independent bookstores, and many others." The Times doesn't use it.

Here is a recommendation from observer.com (and I suggest you read the entire article. It's not overly long but is an eye opener.): hire a laundering firm. The firm will hire people nation-wide "to buy books through various retailers one at a time, using different credit cards, shipping addresses and billing addresses. This allows the sales to go through and show up as individual sales, instead of bulk purchases. These sales then get reported to Nielson BookScan. Pay the firm A LOT OF MONEY. Sit back and prepare to celebrate.