02-23-2013, 03:49 PM | #1 | |
Fledgling Demagogue
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How to Buy Your Way onto The New York Times Bestseller List
Source: Forbes (by way of The Wall Street Journal).
Though Forbes writer Jeff Bercovici singles out the NYTBL because of its arbitrary prestige, he also shows that a presence on virtually all bestseller lists can be bought in the same way: Quote:
Last edited by Prestidigitweeze; 02-23-2013 at 03:52 PM. |
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02-23-2013, 04:44 PM | #2 | |
Grand Sorcerer
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Check this one:
http://www.leapfrogging.com/2013/02/...k-sales-spike/ Quote:
Yeah, right. Just like these guess were curators of culture: http://oldies.about.com/od/oldieshis...ayolaroots.htm |
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02-23-2013, 04:46 PM | #3 |
Omnivorous
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Yet another reason to ignore Best Seller lists.
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02-23-2013, 05:45 PM | #4 |
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02-23-2013, 05:48 PM | #5 |
Wizard
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02-23-2013, 06:00 PM | #6 |
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What is the big deal?
Anyone that peruses these lists has the option of using them or not. I prefer to use them as an indicator of a presence that needs to be checked out at least once. Wow, who is that? Ugh... I won't mention names but some of the books that are extoled are pure crud. Most are just mediocre. Some are excellent. The other thing to remember is that an author may do a great job with one book or series, and then in another they just seem to be flailing a dead horse. It just gets worse and worse. So remember don't expect consistent great works or terrible works from any author. All of us produce varying results. And by the way the same expectations work for movies. Last edited by frahse; 02-23-2013 at 06:04 PM. |
02-23-2013, 06:09 PM | #7 | |
Omnivorous
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Quote:
Best Seller lists are just another marketing technique and I don't need anymore marketing techniques. |
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02-23-2013, 06:16 PM | #8 | ||
Wizard
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Quote:
Quote:
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02-23-2013, 06:26 PM | #9 | |
occasional author
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Quote:
I hunt everywhere for descriptions once a book catches my eye. My attitude is: "Prove to me I want to read this book." AND I don't mean the "OH. SO WONDERFUL! ENTHRALLING! WOW!" I can handle running into a spoiler, but I don't handle letdowns well. |
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02-23-2013, 08:17 PM | #10 | |
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Quote:
I think it is newsworthy that a book is popular. It tells you something about the direction society is going. As for bulk sales, the New York Times puts a dagger next to titles being pushed up that way, when it notices. The OP article says that they have sometimes failed to award a deserved dagger, and I'm sure that's true. I love newspapers, but, as someone said, they're just the first rough draft of history. |
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02-23-2013, 10:05 PM | #11 |
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Not only BSL's but most reviews are also worthless. I suspect that many of them simply reprint the press release they got. I think I agree with frahse though-often I'll bypass a book, even by an author I know, if all the author/publisher/whoever can find to say about it is how much they liked the author's previous books. Unless it's part of a series that I like, then I'll probably buy it-and occasionally I'll be disappointed that way too. I have several series that I've read the first couple of books & stopped either because it appears the author is saying the same thing over & over (me good guy, me fight bad guy, me win is an example) or is simply unable to develop the story in a way that's interesting to me.
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02-24-2013, 12:32 AM | #12 |
Wizard
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Are we supposed to be surprised that money is used like this?
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02-24-2013, 02:03 AM | #13 |
Plan B Is Now In Force
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I'm not surprised, but then I never pay attention to best seller lists anyway; I've always picked my books by there blurbs. An author's opinion might sway me - either to buy it or to put it back on the shelf - depending on whether or not I like the recommending author's own work. If I recognize recommending authors as belonging to the same literary circle as the book's author, I disregard them.
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02-24-2013, 03:55 AM | #14 |
Fledgling Demagogue
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I think we're supposed to be surprised that money works so specifically and effectively for anyone who has it, no matter how unconnected they might be. It's a question not of NYTBR being corrupt but of its fraud markers being bypassed.
Corruption would have been my first thought. I'd have assumed this was another form of payola, which determined visible successes in the music industry until late 1991, when Soundscan began reporting which albums actually sold the most -- far more hiphop than had ever been acknowledged, for example, which led to its dominance in that decade. I was in the industry then and remember that from real life: from an established client's sudden inability to buy their way into airplay and sales (which I hadn't known about until no one could do it), and from rock professionals' reactions to the sudden ascendancy of kinds of music which they'd assumed were irrelevant. Just now, I looked up the Wikipedia entry for SoundScan to confirm my recollection of the dates and found an article and a book in the footnotes which confirm soundscan's role in hiphop's success. Fascinating, to watch privileged information become historical fact. Last edited by Prestidigitweeze; 02-24-2013 at 06:02 PM. |
02-24-2013, 10:36 AM | #15 |
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A company claims it can game the system, so the list-keepers try various tactics to get on the list. *Yawn*
This is very different than payola. Amazon and the NYT are not demanding payments in order to put a title on the list, they're actively trying to thwart efforts to play the system. The publishers aren't the gatekeepers of those lists, so blaming them is beyond ridiculous. The bottom line is a few people are willing to spend ridiculous sums of money to proclaim that their book is a "best seller." Since the term is already meaningless and applied regardless of how well a book has sold, I can't imagine why anyone gets vexed over the issue. |
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