Short Stuff: NYT Bestseller List | STUFF YOU SHOULD KNOW

[Music]. hey and welcome to the short stuff I'm. Josh and there's Chuck and uh well it's. just Josh and Chuck and that's cool. because we know what we're doing we're. professionals we've been doing this for. a while haven't we Chuck yeah we're. we're also New York Times bestselling. authors ain't that. nuts that's that's one of the the nicer. feathers in our professional caps I. think yeah and I I mean I I knew that. was a big deal and I I'm very proud of. it and have been since it happened.

but after researching this I'm like wow. this is a a really really big deal in. especially considering that we were on. there for four weeks that's a b a big. deal I'm pretty proud of us for it Chuck. yeah for sure uh and the reason we. mentioned that is because not just to. brag uh humbly or otherwise but because. we're talking about the New York Times. besteller list which is um you know. basically the industry standard for uh. how good your book is doing and how sort.

of hot you are as an author in a in a. snapshot of time or overtime and big. thanks to house upworks.com for some of. this and uh Sophie versaw from Esquire. magazine who wrote a great article um. about just sort of the the mysterious. black magic that goes. into uh compiling the New York Times. list even though the New York Times will. say it's just uh how how many books are. selling yeah they're very they publish.

their methodology so you know kind of. what's going on but you don't really. know exactly what's going on and there's. a lot of um people in the publishing. world that are very suspicious of the. New York Times and their their. bestseller list even though the New York. Times goes to Great pains to point out. that the New York Times bestseller list. desk yeah is independent of the. editorial desk advertising business. culture even the book review desk it's a. separate department and the reason that.

they point that out is because they're. saying our bestseller list is insulated. from pressure from anybody who might be. like this publisher is a huge Advertiser. with the times why don't you just you. know bump this one up from 11 to 10 so. it can be on the best seller list. they're saying that they are immune to. that kind of thing and that their list. is like you said it's a numbers game and. it's not curated or editorialized that's. that's what they say about it yeah and. we'll we'll get more into that stuff but. uh Nuts and Bolts wi uh the list has.

multiple categories and they all measure. different sales types uh there are 11. weekly lists seven monthly lists and. they are separated thusly uh you have. three categories of books fiction. non-fiction and children's books check. and then those are all uh subdivided as. well fiction and non-fiction are broken. down into hard cover paperback and then. print and digital combined and then. non-fictions broken down into uh there's. another subcategory for how-to books cuz.

I guess they just want those to live by. themselves well that's our list oh were. we at howto we were advice how to and. miscellaneous I need a teacher that says. that uh and then kids books are divided. into middle grade hard cover uh which is. all one category uh picture books series. and young adult hard cover and then you. got your monthly list and that's where. you can find like audio books graphic. novels uh manga stuff like that yeah.

Mass Market paperbacks which I was like. what's the difference between mass. market paperbacks and regular paperbacks. Mass Market paperbacks are printed. cheaply and they're distributed like. magazines so they're kind of like their. own separate thing that kind you find in. like a little spinner rack at the. airport that's a mass Market paperback. all right so they say the New York Times. says all right we have data sources uh. we keep them confidential because they. want to quote circumvent potential. pressure on the book sellers uh and. prevent people from trying to game their. way on to the list we'll talk a lot.

about the fact that that still happens. probably after the break but they keep. their data sources confidential uh they. say that they don't use data aggregators. and that they are just getting this data. from book sellers but uh people in the. publishing industry say I I just don't. see how that's possible they've got to. use aggregators but they say they don't. yeah they say that every week thousands. of book retail ERS digital and um brick.

and. mortar send them their sales for. hundreds of thousands of books and that. they waight them differently like Indie. bookstores might get slightly more. consideration than say like um a Barnes. & Noble that that's like the details of. the formula no one knows about but they. say that that's where they get their. numbers from that's where they get their. data from and yeah like you said some. some people are just like that's just. not possible there's something called. reader link there's something called. book scan these are huge aggregating.

tools that there's no way the New York. Times bestseller list is just completely. ignoring those yeah but I mean they say. they don't so it's kind of one of those. things where they they won't reveal all. their methodology I mean they print. their meth methodology but like they. don't tell you I saw liken to like we. kind of know what the formula for Coke. is but not the exact recipe yeah and. that's basically what's going on because. there are uh plenty of instances where. people can point to Raw sales data and.

say well hey the number eight book sold. more books than the number four book how. can that be and the New York Times will. say sales data is just one factor and. the rest is nun yeah it's like an. impenetrable Fortress and they're really. really good on leaks like you don't. leave the New York Times bestseller desk. and if you do they you probably turn up. dead within a week or two in your. apartment it's in a body bag. mhm uh all right should we take a break.

sure all right we'll take a break and. we'll talk about gaming the system right. after. [Music]. this. theace. [Music]. seriously.

so Chuck we're back and um you mentioned. people gaming the system it's actually. quite possible it's been done before and. as we'll see it's apparently routinely. done from everybody from in you know um. Insidious actors Bad actors yeah to um. entire publishing houses their entire. publicity Department that people have. just figured out how to how to if not. directly G. the New York Times best seller list to.

get on it at the very least tip the odds. in their favor as much as they can yeah. and one you know legitimate way you can. tip the odds in your favor is uh. something that we did and basically. everybody does now it's called. pre-orders and that's why you hear. authors hammering home pre-ordering uh. is really big deal like we' really love. you to pre-order because all of those. pre-orders get rolled up into the week. one sales so the goal of any author is. to just is to land on that list uh even.

if it's just that one week and and. pre-orders are actually one reason why. uh a lot of people are sort of one week. and out um we did do pre-orders so it's. not like anything untour everyone does. it but we were on for four weeks so I. felt like we had some sustained sales. which made me feel pretty good that's. one of the things that I turned up in. this research that made me feel good. about what we did so yeah yeah so um. that's one way to gain sales another way. to do it is um involved in pre-orders we.

we did giveaways some people do um like. speaking engagements if you ever go see. an author and you get a book like the. price of admission gets you a book. that's done to game pre-orders too. because if you do you know X number of. of speaking engagements and you know you. sell a 100 books at each one those count. toward that first week and that can add. up significantly and help get on that. bestseller list too there's other ways.

to do it that are much more Insidious. and and. hamfisted yeah like there are companies. uh and they're not going to say this. they're not going to advertise this on. their website uh but apparently there. have been some you know uh Washington. Post wrote about some of the stuff and. and the New York Times there's one. company called book highlight that uh. people you know publishing insiders say. here's what you can do with a company. like that is you can as an author say.

here's 20 grand I want you to go out and. buy you know however many copies of. books that that can buy uh through. various you know independent book. sellers spread it out buy them in small. um small enough chunks so it looks like. organic sales it's basically book. laundering really for sure well and then. all of a sudden you're rolled up into uh. a week one you know bestseller list. debut which is what you're really after. because just being on the list means. you're gonna sell more books right and.

authors would H hire book highlight um. because the author ends up owning those. books and they can either give them away. they can turn around and sell them if. they want to but like you said it's a. business it's a business investment it's. a shady unethical business investment. that that tricks people into thinking. your book is very popular but it's. something that can be done um and it has. been done before that's definitely um an. Insidious way to kind of game the system.

and the reason that you said they would. go out and and buy small amounts of. books at a number of different book. sellers is because um The New York Times. pays attention to bulk purchases yeah. they they factor that in to where if you. have like a a thousand purchase um or a. thousand book purchase from like Amazon. or something for your book and that gets. reported in your your weekly sales they.

take that into consideration they. basically say you're trying to game the. system but rather than not include those. people because again the mission of the. New York Times bestseller list is to. reflect what the average reader out. there in the United States is. organically buying on their own going to. a retailer online or in person and. buying a. book rather than disinclude those people. who are gaming the system by bulk. purchases they just put like a little. dagger a little cross next to their name. mhm and the thing is to that author and.

almost everybody who doesn't follow the. New York Times bestseller list. methodology they're a New York Times. bestseller and so critics are like don't. even put those people on the list you're. still legitimizing what they're doing. even though you know they're gaming the. system yeah I also saw though where the. dagger which is essentially an asterisk. um is sort of a kiss of death oh really. like yeah like if you're an author who. got the dagger on the list then.

everybody in publishing knows the deal. oh right right yeah yeah if you're an. author but like if you're I saw that. it's um I think so Sophie verow said or. vershbow said it's um most often used by. business authors they don't care about. the publishing World they care about. their larger public facing brand yeah. they said like health and wellness books. self-help books diet books and books. authored by CEOs those are some of the. biggest abusers uh and and Dagger.

Getters MH uh that are gaming the system. so if you see some dumb diet book or. some self-help book that uh all of a. sudden is like number two on the list. and you're like how in the world is that. selling more than whatever the Harry. Potter book is it's probably because. they've gained the system and look for. that dagger that dagger is probably. there uh another few people that have. been daggered uh recently and this is. another way you can do it uh is uh. Donald Trump junor the RNC bought.

$100,000 worth of his books in week one. and Jared Kushner uh there was a pro. Trump pack that bought. $158,000 worth of his books in week one. so they got the dagger uh multiple CEOs. Howard Schultz of Starbucks he got a. dagger all these daggers around and like. you said I think for the ego of some of. them they don't care no they don't care. and also they don't care about the. publishing world they're they're just. stepping into it to use the publishing.

world to to boost their larger brand. right and so that's the big criticism is. is people who do bulk purchasing it's. like the the New York Times bestseller. list shouldn't even include them yeah. because not only is it it's it's. rewarding somebody who's gaming the. system you're also leaving off people. who are actual like authors that's their. job so being on the New York Times. bestseller list is a really big deal for. them and being left off um in favor of. somebody who GED the system is that much.

more bitter yeah absolutely one thing I. do know stuff you should know no dagger. no no dagger we did not game the system. we did not uh you got anything else no I. mean thank you for everyone who bought. books and helped us accomplish that goal. because it's not like we did it no we. definitely did not we did. not I didn't buy any of them I got mine. for free did you buy any uh I've bought. a couple full as gifts but I don't think.

that had much of an impact yeah those. two pushed it over the edge exactly you. got anything else I have nothing else. sir okay everybody short stuff is. out stuff you should know is a. production of iHeart radio for more. podcasts iHeart Radio visit the iHeart. Radio app Apple podcasts or wherever you. listen to your favorite. [Music]. shows.