The New York Times The Best Seller List is widely regarded as the leading list of bestsellers in the United States. Published weekly at The New York Times Book Review, the best-seller list has been published in the Times since October 12, 1931. In recent years it has grown into several lists in categories different, broken down by fiction and non-fiction, hardcover, novel, and electronic, and different genres.
Video The New York Times Best Seller list
History
Although the first list of American best sellers was published in 1895, at Bookman, the list of best sellers was not published in The New York Times up to 36 years later with little fanfare. on October 12, 1931. It consists of five fiction and four non-fiction books for New York City alone. The following month the list was expanded to eight cities, with separate lists published for each city. In the early 1940s, fourteen city lists were included. The national list was made on April 9, 1942, in The New York Times Book Review (Sunday) as a supplement to the regular city list (Monday edition). The national list is ranked by the number of times the book appears in the city list. A few years later, the city list was completely abolished leaving only a list of national rankings, compiled based on "reports from leading booksellers in 22 cities". This ranking methodology by the sales figures of booksellers is still to this day even though the proper data compilation process is a trade secret and has evolved over time.
In the 1950s, The Times List has been the best-selling book list for book professionals to monitor, along with Weekly Publishers . In the 1960s and 70s, chain-based chain stores of B. Dalton, Crown Books, and Waldenbooks were at the forefront of the newly released best-selling sales business model with mass market appeal. They use the best sales status to market the book and not just as a sales measure; thereby placing greater emphasis on the New York Times list for book readers and booksellers.
Maps The New York Times Best Seller list
Composition
This list was compiled by an editor from the "News Survey" department, not by the New York Times Book Review department, where it was published. This is based on weekly sales reports obtained from selected samples of independent bookstores and chains and wholesalers across the United States. The widespread sales figures are believed to represent books that have actually been sold in retail, not wholesale, as a book seller of the Times survey in an effort to better reflect what each buyer purchases. Some books are marked with daggers that indicate that a large number of bulk orders have been received by retail bookstores.
The New York Times reported in 2013 that "we [generally do not] track the sale of classical literature," and thus, for example, a new translation from Dante's Inferno will not be found at bestseller list.
Appropriate methods for collecting data obtained from booksellers are classified as trade secrets. The staff editor of the Book Review Gregory Cowles explains the method "is a good secret to protect our products and to ensure people can not try to install the system.Even in the Book Review itself, we do not know (news survey department) the right method." In 1992 , this survey includes more than 3,000 bookstores as well as "representative wholesalers with more than 28,000 other retail outlets, including various stores and supermarkets." In 2004, the number was 4,000 bookstores as well as a number of wholesalers that were not stated. The data is adjusted to give more weight to independent bookstores, which are poorly represented in the sample.
The list is shared between fiction and non-fiction, print and e-books, paperback and hardcover; each list contains 15 to 20 titles. The lists have been split several times. "Suggestions, How-Tos, and Others" debuted as a five-list on January 1, 1984. It was made because the best sellers' suggestions sometimes clustered on the general non-fiction list. The best-selling best-selling book,
Criticism
This list has been criticized by authors, publishers, book industry executives, and others for not providing an accurate estimate of the best seller status. This criticism has been going on since the list originated. A book industry report in the 1940s found that the best-seller list was a poor sales indicator, since they were based on misleading data and only measured quick sales (see "quick sales" critique below). The 2004 report cited a senior book marketing executive who said the ratings were "smoke and mirrors"; while the report in Book History found that many professionals in the book industry "derided the idea that the list was accurate".
Specific criticisms include:
- Quick sales. A book that never makes a list can actually sell more books on a best-seller list. This is because the best seller lists reflect sales in a given week, not total sales. Thus, one book can sell very much in a certain week, make a list, while others may sell more slowly, never make lists, but sell more copies over time.
- double counting. By entering the wholesaler to the polls along with the retail bookstore, the book may be counted twice. Wholesale traders report how much they sell to retailers, and retailers report how much they sell to customers, so that it can overlap with the same reported book sold twice in a given time period. In addition, resellers can return books to wholesalers a few months later if they never sell, resulting in a reported "sale" that never works. For example, mass market paperbacks can see as high as 40% rate of return from retailers returning to wholesalers.
- Manipulation by author and publisher. Writer Jacqueline Susann ( Valley of the Dolls ) attempted to "butter-up" Times - the seller of the report book and personally purchased the book in bulk. Author Wayne Dyer ( Your Erroneous Zones ) buys thousands of copies from his own book. Al Neuharth (Confessions of an S. O. B. ), former head of the Gannett Company, requested the Gannett Foundation to buy two thousand copies of his own autobiography. In 1995, writers Michael Treacy and Fred Wiersema spent $ 200,000 to buy ten thousand copies of the Book Market Leadership of dozens of bookstores. Although they denied wrongdoing, this book spent 15 weeks on the list. As a result of this scandal, The Times starts placing a kris symbol next to any title that the bookstore reports on bulk orders. But the dagger does not always appear; eg Tony Hsieh's Delivering Happiness is known to have been manipulated with bulk orders but has no dagger. Companies that make contracts with authors to manipulate bestseller lists through "best-selling campaigns" including ResultSource.
- Manipulation by retailers and wholesalers. It happens regularly that wholesalers and retailers deliberately or inadvertently manipulate the sales data they report to the Times . Being on the best seller list increases sales of books, bookstores, and grocers can report that books are best-sellers before actually becoming one, so that later it can become a "best-selling seller" through upgrading sales for being included in the best-selling list, leading to the list of best sellers who are satisfactory forecasts for booksellers.
- Leading data collection. The Times provides booksellers with a form that lists books that are believed to be the bestseller, to check, with the "Other" alternative columns to be filled manually. It has been criticized as a leading technique for creating a best-seller list based on books that may be included by Times . One bookseller compares it to a sound card where two options for the President are given: "Bill Clinton and Other".
- Quite satisfied. After a book enters the list, the book is marketed heavily as a "best-seller", purchased by readers looking for the best sellers, given preferential treatment by retailers, online and offline, which creates a special best-seller category including specialized in Placements -stores and price discounts, and carried by retailers who generally do not carry other books (eg, supermarkets). Thus, the list can be self-fulfilling in determining which books have high sales and remain on the list.
- Conflicts of interest. Due to the high financial impact of list making, since the 1970s publishers have made escalator clauses for the major authors who determined that if a book lists, the author will receive additional money, based on his rank and for how long. Authors can also charge higher speaking fees for the status of being a best-seller. Like Book History that says, "With so much at stake, it's no surprise that massive marketing efforts go in to get access to books to this key marketing tool."
Controversy
In 1983, author William Peter Blatty sued The New York Times for $ 6 million, claiming that his latest book, Legion (filmed as The Exorcist III >), has not been included in the list due to deliberate omissions or errors, saying it should be included due to high sales. The Times denies that the list was not objectively mathematical but editorial content and thus protected by the Constitution as freedom of speech. Blatty appealed to the Supreme Court, which refused to hear the case. Thus, the lower court ruling states that the list is editorial content, not factual objective content, so that Times has the right to exclude books from the list.
In 1995, Michael Treacy and Fred Wiersema, author of a book titled Market Leaders Discipline, colluded to manipulate their books into the best seller charts. The authors allegedly bought more than 10,000 copies of their own books in small orders and placed strategically in bookstores whose sales were reported to BookScan. Due to the benefits of creating a list of Best Sellers in the New York Times (speaking agreements, more book offerings, and consultations), the authors feel that buying their own work is a self-paying investment. The book goes up to No. 4 on the list where it sits for 15 weeks; it also reached # 1 on the list of the best sellers of BusinessWeek . Since such lists have cumulative profit strengths, chart success often generates more success charts. Although such efforts are not illegal, the publisher considers them unethical.
In 1999, Amazon.com announced a 50 percent price drop for books on the Best Seller List to beat its competitors, Barnes & amp; Noble. After a legal dispute between Amazon and the New York Times , Amazon was allowed to keep using the list provided that it was displayed in alphabetical order rather than number. In 2010, this is no longer the case; Amazon now displays the best-selling list in the order of the first best-selling title.
In 2013, Forbes published a story titled "Here's How You Purchased Your Way To The New York Times Bestsellers List." This article discusses how ResultSource, a San Diego-based marketing consultant, specializes in making sure the book becomes a bestseller list, even securing a No. 1 spot. 1 for those who are willing to pay enough. The New York Times was notified of this practice and replied: " The New York Times tracks comprehensively and tabulates weekly unit sales of all titles reported by book retailers as a general interest they're best-selling books.We will not comment outside of our methodology on other questions. " The New York Times does not warn its readers for this, unlike The Wall Street Journal, that books have landed on their bestseller list because of the ResultSource campaign. Soren Kaplan, a source claiming to have paid the ResultSource for his book, Leapfrogging , in the The Wall Street Journal bestseller list, reveals the methodology on his blog; he posted: "If I can get a bulk order before Leapfrogging is released, ResultSource will buy books on my behalf by using their tried-and-true formula.Three thousand books sold will keep me in The Wall Street Journal bestseller list.Eleven thousand will earn a place in the greatest prize of all of them, The New York Times list.
In 2014, Los Angeles Times published a story titled "Can the bestseller list be bought?" This illustrates how author and pastor Mark Driscoll contracted a ResultSource company to place his book Real Wedding (2012) on the Best Seller's New York Times list at $ 200,000. The contract was for the ResultSource "to perform the best-selling campaign for your book, 'Real Wedding' on the week of January 2, 2012. The bestselling book campaign is meant to put 'Real Wedding' in the New York Times bestseller list for Advice How-to list. this, the contract states that "RSI will buy at least 11,000 total orders within a week." This happened, and the book made it to No.1 on the hardcover advice bestseller list on January 22, 2014.
In July 2015, Ted Cruz's book A Time For Truth was excluded from the list because "the extraordinary proof is that sales of Cruz's [book] are limited to strategic bulk purchases" to artificially increase sales and go to list. In response, Cruz called the "liar" and demanded an apology. The Times says it stands by the statement and evidence of its manipulation.
In August 2017, the young adult fiction book Handbook for Mortals by previously unpublished author Lani Sarem was removed from the list, where it originally came in at # 1. According to a statement issued by Times , "after investigating inconsistencies in the latest reporting cycle, we decided that sales for Handbook for Mortals did not meet our criteria for inclusion We have published updating the 'Adult Adult Hardcover' list for September 3, 2017 excluding the title. "It was revealed, by writer Phil Stamper, that there is an unusual bulk ordering pattern that inflates the amount of sales. The book is published by GeekNation, an entertainment website based in Los Angeles. The book was originally written as a script, and rewritten as a novel in an attempt to launch a franchise film.
In August 2017, conservative publisher Regnery Publishing said it would no longer allow its authors to claim the "New York Times bestselling author" for his belief that the Times favored liberal books on the list. The Times responds to the author's political views have nothing to do with the list and notes conservative writers routinely rank high on the list. The Associated Press notes that Times is often the target of conservatives and Republicans. The Washington Post calls Regenery prohibit an "action" designed to increase sales, "What better way to sell a book to a conservative audience than to promote the idea that the New York Times does not like it?" The < i> Post compared to the best seller list of Weekly Publishers looking for bias and can not find any.
Study
A Stanford Business School analysis shows that "the majority of book buyers seem to use the Times ' list as a signal of what's worth reading". The study concludes that lesser-known authors derive the greatest benefits from the list, while enduring best-selling authors, such as John Grisham or Danielle Steel, do not see the benefits of additional sales.
See also
- Bestsellers
- List The New York Times Best Fictional Seller
- List The New York Times Non-Fiction Seller Best
- List The New York Times Best Manga Seller
- Oprah Book Club list
- Weekly Publishers of the bestselling novel in the United States
References
External links
- The New York Times Best Seller List (currently)
- The New York Times Best Seller List (historical)
- The previous fiction was # 1 bestselling
- Non-fiction # 1 previous best seller
- Controversy regarding new child list
- The New York Times Best Seller From Local Library
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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