4 ms·

The consensus I've seen from people in the publishing industry is that lots of books buy their way onto the NYT bestseller list, but this one is just being much

The consensus I've seen from people in the publishing industry is that lots of books buy their way onto the NYT bestseller list, but this one is just being much less subtle about it.

ada1981 9y ago
I like this one better than people shelling out $200k to make the list because they exploited a bug in the system -- this didn't cost anything outside the manpower to place these orders which will never go through or be charged.
- arthurjj 9y ago
  Thank you. The article is treating the NYT bestseller list as sacrosanct. Someone figured a (relatively) cheap way to hack it. Good for them. As someone who just published a children's book if I thought this would work I would try it.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - PhasmaFelis 9y ago
    It's a scam regardless of how cheap it was. It sounds like you're trying justify the fact you'd be willing to do the same scam.
    - ada1981 9y ago
      Years ago I became aware of how many wealthy people and "best-selling authors" bought their way onto the NY Times list and how even people with publishing deals are often "encouraged" to use their advances to use companies like ResultsSource. Since the entire thing seems to be a scam to me I like this one because of it's elegance. Why bother even selling the books or paying Results Source when you can just put it in a few hundred orders for 30 books across various independent stores.
protomyth 9y ago
A bit more irritating to fellow publishers (sour grapes) because this publisher didn’t have to fork out actual cash for their own books. Feel sorry for the stores taking the orders with no hope of actual sales.
- mcphage 9y ago
  > Feel sorry for the stores taking the orders with no hope of actual sales. Since it's not clear if the book has actually even been published, I'm not sure those orders would ever be fulfilled.
  - protomyth 9y ago
    Yeah, but some poor sap at the book store has to deal with this crap. Paper cuts add up.

The consensus I've seen from people in the publishing industry is that lots of books buy their way onto the NYT bestseller list, but this one is just being much less subtle about it.

ada1981 9y ago

I like this one better than people shelling out $200k to make the list because they exploited a bug in the system -- this didn't cost anything outside the manpower to place these orders which will never go through or be charged.

arthurjj 9y ago
Thank you. The article is treating the NYT bestseller list as sacrosanct. Someone figured a (relatively) cheap way to hack it. Good for them. As someone who just published a children's book if I thought this would work I would try it.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- PhasmaFelis 9y ago
  It's a scam regardless of how cheap it was. It sounds like you're trying justify the fact you'd be willing to do the same scam.
  - ada1981 9y ago
    Years ago I became aware of how many wealthy people and "best-selling authors" bought their way onto the NY Times list and how even people with publishing deals are often "encouraged" to use their advances to use companies like ResultsSource. Since the entire thing seems to be a scam to me I like this one because of it's elegance. Why bother even selling the books or paying Results Source when you can just put it in a few hundred orders for 30 books across various independent stores.

protomyth 9y ago

A bit more irritating to fellow publishers (sour grapes) because this publisher didn’t have to fork out actual cash for their own books. Feel sorry for the stores taking the orders with no hope of actual sales.

mcphage 9y ago
> Feel sorry for the stores taking the orders with no hope of actual sales. Since it's not clear if the book has actually even been published, I'm not sure those orders would ever be fulfilled.
- protomyth 9y ago
  Yeah, but some poor sap at the book store has to deal with this crap. Paper cuts add up.