Several years ago, a story broke (paywall) about an author who hired a marketing firm to launch his book onto the New York Times bestseller list—and succeeded. But when the firm’s less-than-honest methods were uncovered, the result was scandal and embarrassment. The author had more or less paid this firm to purchase copies of his book in strategically important places.
Since that scandal broke, gaming the system in this way has become harder, but late in August, it did happen again. Given the red flags all over this one, we wondered if all the NYT book staffers were away on vacation, with interns running the office. The book in question: the YA hardcover Handbook for Mortals by Lani Sarem. It debuted at number one on the YA bestseller list, much to the surprise of the entire publishing community, given that it had very few reviews and was the first title from a new publisher and unknown author. So how did it happen?
For those unaware, the New York Times is the hardest bestseller list to hit, because it gathers information from many different sales outlets across the country to determine what titles make the cut. Which particular retail outlets are surveyed remains confidential, but the NYT includes both physical bookstores and online sellers. In the case of Handbook for Mortals, someone was calling up stores and directly asking if they were NYT-reporting stores, then placing bulk orders if a store replied yes. After the book hit the bestseller list, another YA author figured out this strategy by doing some detective work of his own (summarized here).
When word spread about the manipulation, the NYT pulled the book from its list, stating that it did not meet criteria for inclusion. Normally, the NYT is good at catching people who self-order to gain an advantage; in this case, it’s possible the book wasn’t flagged as manipulating the system because the bulk order number was kept sufficiently low at each retailer. Still, a quick look at the book anywhere online would’ve raised serious questions as to the legitimacy of the book’s sales.
But here’s the twist, reported by Michael Cader of Publishers Lunch. NPD BookScan, which measures US print book sales sold through physical retailers—at point of sale—continued to report a surprisingly high number of sales for Handbook for Mortals after the deception was uncovered. Even if a large number of copies had been bulk ordered through Ingram and shipped to stores, no significant number of sales should be registering through BookScan because the books wouldn’t be available in stores yet and wouldn’t be actively selling to customers. (Also, there’s little or no evidence to support a high volume of print sales at Barnes & Noble or Amazon.)
So where are the reported NPD BookScan sales coming from? Is its reporting inaccurate? Cader was not able to get a satisfying answer to that question from NPD. He concludes, “Something is still missing from this puzzle, and until the industry has some clarity about what happened with Handbook, it’s hard to have any confidence that the system won’t be gamed again.”
Bottom line: For more detail on how the system was gamed, check out Thu-Huong Ha’s article at Quartz. Authors often ask how many book sales it takes to hit the bestseller list, but the question is unanswerable; it’s based on context. Being a NYT bestseller says very little about how many copies a book has sold. In the music industry, if a record goes platinum, you know it has sold a million copies. But there are no such official designations in book publishing, and sales figures are almost never released. Furthermore, lists such as those at the NYT typically exclude what are known as perennial sellers. (For instance, the Bible is the bestselling book year after year in the United States, but you won’t find it on any bestseller list.) You might say the NYT list in particular is biased toward a certain type of book, and that’s partly true. It can be unfair and arbitrary in its methodology and focus, and when something like this happens, the artifice is magnified.
Jane Friedman has spent her entire career working in the publishing industry, with a focus on business reporting and author education. Established in 2015, her newsletter The Bottom Line provides nuanced market intelligence to thousands of authors and industry professionals; in 2023, she was named Publishing Commentator of the Year by Digital Book World.
Jane’s expertise regularly features in major media outlets such as The New York Times, The Atlantic, NPR, The Today Show, Wired, The Guardian, Fox News, and BBC. Her book, The Business of Being a Writer, Second Edition (The University of Chicago Press), is used as a classroom text by many writing and publishing degree programs. She reaches thousands through speaking engagements and workshops at diverse venues worldwide, including NYU’s Advanced Publishing Institute, Frankfurt Book Fair, and numerous MFA programs.
