Strategy session III: managing successon the list, and when there is a chance of that happening—baby,
watch out. People get aggressive.
Many authors suspect that the list is somehow rigged. They
believe that there is a way to manipulate it by shipping heavily to,
or buying from, the right stores. And do you know what? They are
right.
Well, they are right to a point. While publishers regularly try to
pack those outlets known to be polled by the Times, and also send
authors to them for signings, it is still notoriously difficult to "buy"
one's way onto the list. About the best one can hope for is to
increase the odds.
Still, that does not stop authors from trying to force their way on.
For years attempts have been made, and a few may have been suc-
cessful. Most recently, the two authors of a business book, The
Discipline of Market Leaders, laid out big bucks to buy 10,000 copies of
their book through stores known to be polled by the Times. When
exposed the authors protested, saying their purchases were legiti-
mate buys for clients and potential clients of their consulting com-
pany. Uh-huh.
Whether legitimate or not, The Discipline of Market Leaders
appeared on the Times list for fifteen weeks. Now, that is a lot of
money to spend for those results. Charles McGrath, the editor of
the Times Book Review, said at the time that such a stunt—he called
it "not impossible"—would be so expensive that one would need a
reason beyond boosting sales to do it. The authors of Market Leaders
have a consulting and lecture business, and I do not doubt that it
is doing nicely.
So, what is the lesson in this for novelists? Simply that manipu-
lation of the list is a costly gamble with an uncertain chance of suc-
cess and a hard publicity slap if one is caught.
It is worthwhile studying how the Times list is put together. The
Times issues a form every week to 3,050 chain bookstores, indepen-
dent bookstores, and wholesalers. From the completed forms the
list is tabulated, though it appears in the Book Review several weeks
after the data are recorded. A lag that long is still not long enough
for many publishers, who need to plan extra printings, advertising,
and promotional activity.