MobileRead Forums - View Single Post - Amazon Charts is a different kind of "bestseller" list

fjtorres · 05-19-2017, 06:42 PM

Authors in particular get screwed by the NYT rules.
Back in 2015 they openly told PW that their objective was to promote new releases so a children's book that took a year to ramp up its sales rate via word of mouth to where it was outselling most new releases week to week wasn't worthy of their list. So they not only didn't list it (USAToday did), they changed the official rules.

Happens all the time. They openly admit they arbitrarilly move titles up and down or add or delete titles at will. Their list isn't about what readers are buying but about what they want people to buy.

A book can sell 100,000 copies and never make their list while a one week wonder selling 10000 gets celebrated.

That's why USAToday got into the list game...

05-19-2017, 06:42 PM	#5
fjtorres Grand Sorcerer Posts: 11,732 Karma: 128354696 Join Date: May 2009 Location: 26 kly from Sgr A* Device: T100TA,PW2,PRS-T1,KT,FireHD 8.9,K2, PB360,BeBook One,Axim51v,TC1000	Authors in particular get screwed by the NYT rules. Back in 2015 they openly told PW that their objective was to promote new releases so a children's book that took a year to ramp up its sales rate via word of mouth to where it was outselling most new releases week to week wasn't worthy of their list. So they not only didn't list it (USAToday did), they changed the official rules. Happens all the time. They openly admit they arbitrarilly move titles up and down or add or delete titles at will. Their list isn't about what readers are buying but about what they want people to buy. A book can sell 100,000 copies and never make their list while a one week wonder selling 10000 gets celebrated. That's why USAToday got into the list game... Last edited by fjtorres; 05-19-2017 at 06:45 PM.