The New York Times Best Seller List
The New York Times Best Seller List
The New York Times Best Seller List
in an attempt to better reect what is purchased by individual buyers. Some books are agged with a dagger
indicating that a signicant number of bulk orders had
been received by retail bookstores.[8] The Times reported
in 2013 that we [generally do not] track the sales of classic literature, and thus, for example, new translations
of Dantes Inferno would not be found on the bestseller
list.[9]
History
Although the rst best seller list in America was published in 1895, in The Bookman, a best seller list was
not published in The New York Times until 36 years later
with little fanfare on October 12, 1931.[3][4] It consisted
of ve ction and four non-ction books for New York
City only.[4] The following month the list was expanded to
eight cities, with a separate list published for each city.[4]
By the early 1940s, fourteen city-lists were included. A
national list was created on April 9, 1942, in The New
York Times Book Review (Sundays) as a supplement to the
regular city lists (Monday edition).[4] The national list was
ranked according to how many times the book appeared
in the city lists.[4] A few years later, the city lists were
eliminated entirely leaving only the national ranking list,
it was compiled according to reports from leading booksellers in 22 cities.[4] This methodology of ranking by
bookseller sales gures remains to this day although the
exact data compilation process is a trade secret and has
evolved over time.[5]
Composition
book sales, the second tracks e-book sales only (both lists
are further sub-divided into Fiction and Non-ction). In
addition a third new list was published on the web only,
which tracks combined print sales (hardcover and paperback) in ction and nonction. In December 16, 2012,
the childrens chapter books list was divided into two new
lists: middle-grade (ages 812) and young adult (age 12
18), both which include sales across all platforms (hard,
paper and e-book).
Criticisms
CRITICISMS
and Fred Wiersema spent $200,000 to buy ten thousand copies of The Discipline of Market Leaders
from dozens of bookstores.[4] Although they denied
any wrongdoing, the book spent 15 weeks on the list.
As a result of this scandal the Times began placing a
dagger symbol next to any title for which bookstores
reported bulk orders.[4] However daggers do not always appear; for example Tony Hsieh's Delivering
Happiness was known to have been manipulated
with bulk orders but didn't have a dagger.[17] Companies that contract with authors to manipulate the
bestseller list through bestseller campaigns include
ResultSource.[18]
Manipulation by retailers and wholesalers.[4] It happens with regularity that wholesalers and retailers
deliberately or inadvertently manipulate the sales
data they report to the Times.[4] Since being on
the Times best-seller list increases the sales of a
book, bookstores and wholesalers may report a book
is a best-seller before it actually is one, in order
that it might later become a legitimate best-seller
through increased sales due to its inclusion on the
best-seller list,[4] leading to the best-seller lists becoming a self-fullling prophecy for the booksellers.
Leading data collection. The Times provides booksellers with a form containing a list of books it believes might be bestsellers, to check o, with an
alternative Other column to ll in manually.[4]
Its been criticized as a leading technique to create
a best-seller list based on books the Times thinks
might be included.[4] One bookseller compared it to
a voting card in which two options for President are
provided: Bill Clinton and Other.[4]
Self-fullling. Once a book makes it onto the list it
is heavily marketed as a best-seller, purchased by
readers who seek out best-sellers, given preferential
treatment by retailers, online and oine, who create special best-seller categories including special instore placement and price discounts, and is carried
by retailers that generally don't carry other books
(e.g., supermarkets).[4] Thus, the list can become
self-fullling in determining which books have high
sales and remain on the list.[4]
Conicts of interest. Due to high nancial impact of
making the list, since the 1970s publishers have created escalator clauses for major authors stipulating
that if a book makes the list the author will receive
extra money, based on where it ranks and for how
long.[4] Authors may also be able to charge higher
speaking fees for the status of being a best-seller.[4]
As Book History said, With so much at stake then,
it is no wonder that enormous marketing eort goes
into getting a book access to this major marketing
tool.[4]
Controversies
fore Leapfrogging was released, ResultSource would purchase the books on my behalf using their tried-and-true
formula. Three thousand books sold would get me on The
Wall Street Journal bestseller list. Eleven thousand would
secure a spot on the biggest prize of them all, The New
York Times list. [25]
In 2014, the Los Angeles Times published a story titled
Can bestseller lists be bought?"[26][27] It describes how
author and pastor Mark Driscoll contracted the company
ResultSource to place his book Real Marriage (2012) on
The New York Times Best Seller list for a $200,000 fee.
The contract was for ResultSource to conduct a bestseller campaign for your book, 'Real Marriage' on the
week of January 2, 2012. The bestseller campaign is intended to place 'Real Marriage' on the New York Times
bestseller list for the Advice How-to list. To achieve this,
the contract stated that RSI will be purchasing at least
11,000 total orders in one week. This took place, and
the book successfully reached No.1 on the hardcover advice bestseller list on January 22, 2014.[26]
5 Studies
said the New York Times best-seller list is widely considered to be one of the most authoritative lists of which
books are selling the most in American bookstores during his Opening Statement for Hearing on H.R. 1858 on
June 15, 1999.
[3] The New York Times, October 12, 1931. 19
[4] Laura J. Miller (2000). The Best-Seller List as Marketing
Tool and Historical Fiction. In Ezra Greenspan (editor).
Book History. Volume Three. Penn State Press. pp. 286
304. ISBN 0271020504.
[5] Diamond, Edwin (1995). Behind the Times: Inside the
New New York Times. p. 364.
[6] Pierleoni, Allen (Jan 22, 2012). Best-sellers lists: How
they work and who they (mostly) work for. The Sacramento Bee.
[7] Blatty Sue Times on Best-Seller List, from The New
York Times, August 29, 1983.
[8] See table key in any issue from 2011.
EXTERNAL LINKS
8 External links
The New York Times Best Seller List (current)
The New York Times Best Seller List (historical)
Previous ction #1 best sellers
Previous non-ction #1 best sellers
Controversy regarding new childrens list
9.1
Text
9.2
Images
File:Nuvola_apps_bookcase.svg
Source:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a5/Nuvola_apps_bookcase.svg
License: LGPL Contributors: The source code of this SVG is <a data-x-rel='nofollow' class='external text' href='http:
//validator.w3.org/check?uri=https%3A%2F%2Fcommons.wikimedia.org%2Fwiki%2FSpecial%3AFilepath%2FNuvola_apps_
bookcase.svg,<span>,&,</span>,ss=1#source'>valid</a>. Original artist: Peter Kemp
File:Searchtool.svg Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/6/61/Searchtool.svg License: ? Contributors: ? Original artist: ?
9.3
Content license