Help- Conservative Best Sellers

[Alex146]

I've read that Conservative books sell many more copies becuase they are bought whole sale by Conservative Organizations and then distributed at very low prices. I'm researching a paper on Ann the Man, but I can't find any evidance to prove that this is true. Any one know where I could find such evidance?

[Mabus]

1. Newsmax.com does this all the time

The offer books by Coultergeist and others at very low prices if you subscribe to their rag. http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x2205325

It has also been asserted by people like David Brock and Al Franken in their books that Scaife buys the books in bulk.

[LA lady]

2. Sorry

I have worked in the book industry for years. The best seller lists do not include corporate sales. I will find you the links.

[Mz Pip]

3. I think the New York Times

puts a little asterik like symbol next to the titles of books that hit the best seller list that are bought in bulk. I remember it being next to one of Ann's previous books.

So I suggest you start with the New York Times Book Section.

Mz Pip
:dem:

[fasttense]

4. Here is what Wikipedia has to say about the NY Times bestsellers list.

Though I rarely go to Wikipedia, I think this is a fairly accurate description of the NY Times' lists. Note the lists are Not based on actual sales but on a Survey of retailers. The information below matches what I know of the industry and I think is factual.

"The New York Times Best Seller List is a weekly chart in The New York Times that tracks the week's best-selling books in the United States. The list appears in the Sunday Times Book Review section, first debuting on April 9, 1942 under the title, "The Best Selling Books, Here and Everywhere." The first book to top the list was The Last Time I Saw Paris by Elliot Paul.

Unlike some subsequent lists of best sellers, The New York Times list is not based upon total sales figures, but instead upon surveys of a selected sample of retail booksellers. The list is divided into Fiction and Non-Fiction sections, which each contains fifteen titles.

While some believe a book is only truly successful if it appears on the list, the Times maintains that the list is simply that, with no assumption as to its intrinsic value. Nevertheless, some have accused publishers of marketing books in a manner designed to place them on the list. Examples include the works by L. Ron Hubbard, Battlefield Earth and Mission Earth.

Similarly, some listed books are flagged with an obelus (†) indicating that a significant number of bulk orders had been received by retail bookstores. Since it is normally more economical to place bulk orders for classroom or resale use through wholesalers or publishers, this might indicate that the purchases were made to increase a book's placement in the best seller list.

In 2001, a separate section of the best seller list was created to track the sale of children's books. Critics of The New York Times best seller lists claim that the children's book list was created especially so that the Harry Potter book series, which dominated the list for over two years, could be moved to a separate section and other titles allowed to appear on the list."

So yes if a retailer plans on bulk purchases they will show up on the list.

[LA lady]

5. Why would they ever do that??

But they would be nuts to make bulk sales from a retailer! We cannot offer the discount that they would receive with a publisher direct buy.

And New York Times DOES mark the rare occcasions when that occurs.

[fasttense]

6. Well Wikipedia claims they do, and I've heard about it from

some publishing insiders.

"Similarly, some listed books are flagged with an obelus (†) indicating that a significant number of bulk orders had been received by retail bookstores."

Retailers obviously make bulk orders. But why? Because it will up the numbers for the NY Times list perhaps?

Note that the NY Times is Not a list of best sellers. It is based on a survey and usually indicates the sales the retailers expect to make.

[Mabus]

7. They do it because it gives the appearance of public opinion

and because they can.

Excerpts from David Brock's The Republican Noise Machine: Right-Wing Media and How It Corrupts Democracy

Two years later, testimony before the Senate Watergate Committee revealed that Nixon special counsel Charles Colson took $8,000 from Nixon's reelection committee to purchase copies of The News Twisters.6 Among a long list of dirty tricks, Colson had been" charged with planting phony letters to the editor in newspapers to enhance Nixon's image and with entertaining a plot to bomb the Brookings Institution, a Washington think tank the Nixonites considered a symbol of the liberal establishment.7 During Watergate, Colson was designated to attack news accounts as "a fan-tasy, a work of fiction," and he ordered up a "butcher piece" on the Washington Post staff.8

After Nixon's death in 1994, Colson told the story of The News Twisters to Newsweek: " called me into his office on another occasion and asked me if I had read Edith Efron's book about biased network news cov- erage. I had. I had also concluded that it was a book destined for obscurity. Nixon then ordered me to get it on the best-seller list. I was used to cryp- tic instructions, but never one quite like this. After finding the particular stores that the New York Times and others regularly checked to determine which books were selling, I enlisted the assistance of some Nixon support- ers in New York. We literally bought out the stores."9 When Nixon aide E. Howard Hunt quit the White House during the Watergate scandal, he left behind several cartons of The News Twisters.10 (p. 19 of Brock's book)

Footnotes for the excerpt:
6. John M. Crewdson, New York Times, August 19,1974,16.
7. Elizabeth Mehren, "'Insanity' in Nixon's White House," Los Angeles Times, February 18, 2003.
8. Katharine Graham, Personal History (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1997),476-477. 9. "Remembrances," Newsweek, May 2, 1994, 24.
10. Crewdson, op. cit.

The reason they buy the books off the racks is to give the appearance that people are actually buying certain books. It is part of the marketing and legitimizing of the work. This works on several levels. First, it gets the book noticed by the general public. People notice which books are on the list and sometimes it piques their interest enough to buy it. Plus, when someone like Coulter gets on the NYT best seller list is becomes a selling point and gives Fox News a reason to give interview time to the author, thereby, "legitimizing the book" and what it says. The next step is to get the fact that the book has made the list on the cover of the book and on displays at the various book signings.

Finally, the biggest thing it does is cast doubt on the news shows. After all, all these people are buying this book, so what the author says must have some validity, right? (wink, wink) This brings up the old canard about "liberal media bias". If the media interviews the author then the left screams they shouldn't because, like in the case of Coulter, the author is nuts and there is little to substantiate the claims and assertions she makes. On the other hand, if the media doesn't interview the author then they can be accused by the right of surpressing the truth, or at least the version they want to believe is true.

[LA lady]

8. Stupidity rules

I hate to tell you this sad news but those right wing pieces of crap really are what's being bought. I went to work for Borders many years ago and we did our own Best Seller lists.

The most copies of a book I ever sold to anyone was "Germs" and a Senator bought 100 copies to hand out to the other Senators.We gave him a 40% discount.

[Mabus]

9. I think it depends on the community/neighborhood for "real" sales

I live in a progressive community and the book sales are different around here. I have yet to see books by Brock, Michael Moore, Joe Conason, Franken, Gore or Palast in the cheap/"marked down" bins at either the local Borders or Hastings. Their books are usually full-priced (except for discounts when they are originally released) and are available on the shelf. I do notice a number of books by Coulter, Bill Bennett, Barbara Olson and a lot of those "the Clintons/liberals/Democrats are evil" books in the cheap bins - ranging from $1.99 to $4.99 or on special, usually "Buy 2, get 1 free".

On the other hand, I admit my shopping habits are different than most people's. I tend to stay away from the big outlets and shop at locally-owned bookstores first. I do this to support and encourage local businesses but also because they are within walking distance from my house. If, for some reason they don't have it in stock or can't get it, then I go to the Kansas Union's bookstore and get books there with the discount coupons they constantly hand out. My next option is local businesses in KC, like Rainy Day Bookstore. I like to shop at RDB because they are the ones that host authors when they are on book tours. I also stock up on books when we go to conferences, like "Take Back America" or "National Conference on Media Reform". Only as a last resort will I buy at corporate bookstores. The only time that I seem to go to the corporate stores, lke Borders, is when I am meeting someone there. If I'm meeting someone at Borders, I usually can convince them to move to the local coffee house across the street and then on to the local bookstore (across the street from the coffeehouse).

BTW, I do have books from a lot of RW authors. I get them for a dime or quarter at the local thrift shops. Every so often, the thrift stores get a box of books from somewhere that are full of RW books. Sometimes they are new, sometimes it appears someone is getting rid of their collections, either way I get the books for reference purposes. A couple of months ago a neighbor told me that there was a VHS copy of the "Clinton Chronicles" at one of the stores. By the time I got there someone had already bought it. I would love to a copy of that.