This is why most of the self-published or hybrid published books that have sold hundreds of thousands of copies over the past decade have never appeared on this list. That's why I said it's a high school clique mentality. With the exception of a few fiction genres like romance and horror, The New York Times still won't recognize any book that doesn't come from one of the big New York publishing houses as being fit for their list. In order to even have a chance at getting on the New York Times bestseller list, you must do all of these things:ġ. This is especially true for bestseller lists. You can't have pizza, Mexican food and Italian food for dinner. The prerequisites for a bestseller campaign But before you decide to go for it anyway, you need to be aware of two things - the tradeoffs involved (and they are big) and why it is you are so eager to get on that list. With all I've told you already, you may still want to hang on to your goal of being on a bestseller list. Why most authors should not try for bestseller lists. The same thing is true, to different degrees, with the other major national lists - The Wall Street Journal, USA Today and Pu blisher's Weekly. Anyone in publishing can see this, and it is a known fact. I have access because I own a publishing company, and I can see how much the New York Times List varies from the Nielsen report of actual books sold. You can see this clearly if you have access to Nielsen BookScan, which is the database that tracks paid sales covering about 70 to 80 percent of book outlets. It's like high school all over again.Įveryone in publishing has seen this many times. It is a valid legal argument, but it also means The New York Times admitted their bestseller list is just a popularity contest, and they select who they will and won't put in the "cool kids" club. Why? Because The New York Times defense was that "the list did not purport to be an objective compilation of information but instead was an editorial product." They won the case in multiple rulings all the way up to the Supreme Court, based on the argument that the list is not supposed to accurate, but reflects their judgment. He rightly claimed that The New York Times was intentionally excluding it for editorial reasons - the book was considered very controversial at the time - and claimed that their decision was costing him millions of dollars in sales. It sold more than enough copies to be high on the bestseller list for a long time, but initially, it did not appear. And then William Blatty wrote a novel called The Exorcist - which has sold 10 million copies and is a famous movie. You know why they have to admit this publicly? They were sued about it.įor most of the 20th century, they pretended to use a scientific method to count book sales and claimed their list was authoritative and accurate. They readily admit that their list is only reflective of books that are selling at a certain number of bookstores and online retailers around the country - but not an actual bestseller list. The most important bestseller list is The New York Times bestseller list, and they are the worst culprit at this curated elitism. But that attitude is still prevalent today, and still infects how most editors think about books. You know what authors he was talking about? Henry Miller and Harold Robbins, now widely considered titans of modern literature. When questioned about the practice of deciding what books are appropriate to get bestseller status, an old school newspaper editor said they did not want to promote books that were, "sewer-written by dirty-fingered authors for dirty-minded readers." Yes, that's a real quote.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |