The NYT bestseller list has been a horrible indicator of what's selling for a while. You can often see well-known authors make the list weeks before their books

The NYT bestseller list has been a horrible indicator of what's selling for a while. You can often see well-known authors make the list weeks before their books are out due to massive orders by big box stores. A much better source are Indie Bound's Indie Bestseller lists: https://www.indiebound.org/indie-bestsellers https://www.indiebound.org/indie-bestsellers. While still able to be gamed, these lists are compiled based off of sales by independent booksellers. I've often found the books here to be better quality than the NYT bestsellers.