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Short Stuff: NYT Bestseller List · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Hey, and welcome to the Short Stuff. I'm Josh and
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: there's Chuck and well, it's just Josh and Chuck. And
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: that's cool because we know what we're doing. We're professionals.
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: We've been doing this for a while, haven't we, Chuck.
• 0:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we're also New York Times best selling authors.
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: Isn't that nuts?
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: That's one of the nicer feathers in our professional caps.
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: I think, yeah. And I mean I knew that was
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: a big deal and I'm very proud of it and
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: have been since it happened. But after researching this, I'm like, Wow,
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: this is a really really big deal, especially considering that
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: we were on there for four weeks. That's a big deal.
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: I'm pretty proud of us for it.
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: Chuck, Yeah, for sure. And the reason we mentioned that
• 0:45
  Speaker 2: is because not just a brag, humbly or otherwise, but
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: because we're talking about the New York Times best Seller List,
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: which is, you know, basically the industry standard for how
• 0:59
  Speaker 2: good you're book is doing and how sort of hot
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: you are as an author in a snapshot of time
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: or over time. And big thanks to HowStuffWorks dot com
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: for some of this, and Sophie Vershaw from Esquire magazine,
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: who wrote a great article about just sort of the
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: mysterious black magic that goes into compiling the New York
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: Times list, even though The New York Times will say,
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: it's just how how many books you're selling?
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah, they're very They publish their methodology, so you know
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  Speaker 1: kind of what's going on, but you don't really know
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: exactly what's going on. And there's a lot of people
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: in the publishing world that are very suspicious of the
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: New York Times and their bestseller list. Even though The
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: New York Times goes to great pains to point out
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  Speaker 1: that the New York Times bestseller list desk, yeah, is
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: independent of the editorial desk, advertising, business culture, even the
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: book review desk. It's a separate department. The reason that
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: they point that out is because they're saying, our bestseller
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  Speaker 1: list is insulated from pressure from anybody who might be like,
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: this publisher is a huge advertiser with the Times, why
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: don't you just bump this one up from eleven to
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: ten so it can be on the best seller list.
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: They're saying that they are immune to that kind of thing,
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  Speaker 1: and that their list is, like you said, it's a
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  Speaker 1: numbers game and it's not curated or editorialized. That's what
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: they say about it.
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and we'll get more into that stuff. But nuts
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  Speaker 2: and bolts wise, the list has multiple categories and they
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: all measure different sales types. There are eleven weekly lists,
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: seven monthly lists, and they are separated fussly. You have
• 2:42
  Speaker 2: three categories of books, fiction, nonfiction, and children's books, and
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  Speaker 2: then those are all subdivided as well. Fiction and nonfiction
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  Speaker 2: are broken down into hardcover paperback, and then print and
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: digital combined, and then nonfiction's broken down into there's another
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: their subcategory for how to books because I guess they
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: just want us to live by themselves.
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: Well, that's our list.
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: Oh were we a how to?
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  Speaker 1: We were advice, how to and miscellaneous. I need a
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: teacher that says that.
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  Speaker 2: And then kids books are divided into middle grade hardcover
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  Speaker 2: which is all one category, picture books, series, and young
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  Speaker 2: adult hardcover. And then you got your monthly list, and
• 3:24
  Speaker 2: that's where you can find like audiobooks, graphic novels, manga
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: stuff like that.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah. Mass market paperbacks, which I was like, what's the
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: difference between mass market paperbacks and regular paperbacks. Mass Market
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: paperbacks are printed cheaply and they're distributed like magazines, so
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: they're kind of like their own separate thing that kind
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: you find in like a little spinner rack at the airport.
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: That's a mass market paperback.
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  Speaker 2: All right, So they say, The New York Times says,
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: all right, we have data sources. We keep them confidential
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  Speaker 2: because they want to quote circumvent potential pressure on the
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  Speaker 2: booksellers and prevent people from trying to game their way
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  Speaker 2: onto the list. We'll talk a lot about the fact
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  Speaker 2: that still happens, probably after the break. But they keep
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  Speaker 2: their data sources confidential. They say that they don't use
• 4:10
  Speaker 2: data aggregators and that they're just getting this data from booksellers.
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  Speaker 2: But people in the publishing industry say, I just don't
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  Speaker 2: see how that's possible. They've got to use aggregators, but
• 4:24
  Speaker 2: they say they don't.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah. They say that every week thousands of book retailers
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  Speaker 1: digital and brick and mortar send them their sales for
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  Speaker 1: hundreds of thousands of books, and that they wait them differently,
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  Speaker 1: like indie bookstores might get slightly more consideration than say,
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  Speaker 1: like a Barnes and Noble. That's like the details of
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  Speaker 1: the formula no one knows about. But they say that
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  Speaker 1: that's where they get their numbers from, that's where they
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  Speaker 1: get their data from. And yeah, like you said, some
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  Speaker 1: people are just like this is not possible, or something
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  Speaker 1: called reader link, there's something called book scam. These are
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  Speaker 1: huge aggregate tools that there's no way the New York
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: Bestseller List is just completely ignoring those.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, but I mean they say they don't. So it's
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  Speaker 2: kind of one of those things where they won't reveal
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  Speaker 2: all their methodology. I mean they print their methodology, but
• 5:17
  Speaker 2: like they don't tell you. I saw a liken to,
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  Speaker 2: like we kind of know what the formula for coke is,
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  Speaker 2: but not the exact recipe. Yeah, and that's basically what's
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  Speaker 2: going on, because there are plenty of instances where people
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  Speaker 2: can point to raw sales data and say, well, hey,
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  Speaker 2: the number eight book sold more books than the number
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  Speaker 2: four book, how can that be? And the New York
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  Speaker 2: Times will say sales data is just one factor and
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  Speaker 2: the rest is none. Yah.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's like an impenetrable fortress. And they're really really
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  Speaker 1: good on leaks, Like you don't leave the New York
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  Speaker 1: Times bestseller desk, and if you do, you probably turn
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: up dead within a week or two in your apartment's.
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  Speaker 2: In a body bag?
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: All right?
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  Speaker 2: Should we take a break?
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  Speaker 1: Sure?
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  Speaker 2: All right, we'll take a break and we'll talk about
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  Speaker 2: gaming the system right after this.
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  Speaker 1: So Chuck, we're back. And you mentioned people gaming the system.
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: It's actually quite possible. It's been done before, and as
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: we'll see, it's apparently routinely done from everybody, from you know,
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  Speaker 1: insidious actors, bad actors, to entire publishing houses, their entire
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  Speaker 1: publicity department. That people have just figured out how to
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  Speaker 1: how to, if not directly game the New York Times
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  Speaker 1: bestseller list, to get on it, at the very least
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  Speaker 1: tip the odds in their favor as much as they can.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, And one you know, legitimate way you can tip
• 7:08
  Speaker 2: the odds in your favor is something that we did
• 7:12
  Speaker 2: and basically everybody does now. It's called pre orders. And
• 7:15
  Speaker 2: that's why you hear authors hammering home. Pre ordering is
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  Speaker 2: really big deal, like we really love you to pre
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  Speaker 2: order because all of those pre orders get rolled up
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  Speaker 2: into the week one sales. So the goal of any
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  Speaker 2: author is to just is to land on that list,
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  Speaker 2: even if it's just that one week. And pre orders
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  Speaker 2: are actually one reason why a lot of people are
• 7:37
  Speaker 2: sort of one week and out. We did do pre orders,
• 7:41
  Speaker 2: so it's not like anything untoward. Everyone does it, but
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  Speaker 2: we were on for four weeks, so I felt like
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  Speaker 2: we had some sustained sales, which made me feel pretty good.
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: That's one of the things that I turned up in
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: this research that made me feel good about what we did.
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  Speaker 2: So yeaheah.
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  Speaker 1: So that's one way to gain sales. Another way to
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  Speaker 1: do it is involved in pre orders. We did giveaways
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: some people do, like speaking engagements. If you ever go
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: see an author and you get a book, like the
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: Price of Admission gets you a book. That's done to
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: game pre orders too, because if you do you know
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  Speaker 1: x number of speaking engagements, and you know you sell
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  Speaker 1: one hundred books at each one, those count toward that
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  Speaker 1: first week and that can add up significantly and help
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  Speaker 1: get you on that bestseller list too. There's other ways
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  Speaker 1: to do it that are much more insidious and ham fisted.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, Like there are companies and they're not going to
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  Speaker 2: say this, they're not going to advertise this on their website,
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  Speaker 2: but apparently there have been some you know, Washington Post
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  Speaker 2: wrote about some of the stuff, and the New York
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  Speaker 2: Times there's one company called book Highlight that people, you know,
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  Speaker 2: publishing insiders say, here's what you can do with a
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  Speaker 2: company like that is you can, as an author say
• 9:00
  Speaker 2: here's twenty grand I want you to go out and buy.
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  Speaker 2: You know, however, many copies of books that that can
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  Speaker 2: buy through various you know, independent booksellers, spread it out,
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  Speaker 2: buy them in small, small enough chunks so it looks
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  Speaker 2: like organic sales. It's basically book laundering really for sure.
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  Speaker 2: And then all of a sudden you're rolled up into
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  Speaker 2: a week one, you know, bestseller list debut, which is
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  Speaker 2: what you're really after because just being on the list
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  Speaker 2: means you're going to sell more books.
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  Speaker 1: Right, and authors would hire book Highlight because the author
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: ends up owning those books and they can either give
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: them away, they can turn around and sell them if
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  Speaker 1: they want to. But like you said, it's a business.
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  Speaker 1: It's a business investment. It's a shady, unethical business investment
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  Speaker 1: that tricks people into thinking your book is very popular.
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  Speaker 1: But it's something that can be done, and it has
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  Speaker 1: been done before. That's definitely an insidious way to kind
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  Speaker 1: of game the system. And the reason that you said
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  Speaker 1: they would go out and buy small amounts of books
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  Speaker 1: at a number of different booksellers. Is because the New
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: York Times pays attention to bulk purchases, they factor that in.
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  Speaker 1: So where if you have like a thousand purchase or
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  Speaker 1: a thousand book purchase from like Amazon or something for
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  Speaker 1: your book and that gets reported in your weekly sales,
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  Speaker 1: they take that into consideration. They basically say, you're trying
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  Speaker 1: to game the system. But rather than not include those people,
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  Speaker 1: because again the mission of the New York Times Bestseller
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  Speaker 1: List is to reflect what the average reader out there
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  Speaker 1: in the United States is organically buying on their own,
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  Speaker 1: going to a retailer online or in person and buying
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  Speaker 1: a book, rather than disinclude those people who are gaming
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  Speaker 1: the system by bulk purchases, they just put like a
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  Speaker 1: little dagger, a little cross next to their name. And
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  Speaker 1: the thing is, to that author and almost everybody who
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  Speaker 1: doesn't follow the New York Times Bestseller List methodology, they're
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  Speaker 1: a New York Times bestseller. And so critics are like,
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  Speaker 1: don't even put those people on the list. You're still
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  Speaker 1: legitimizing what they're doing even though you know they're gaming
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  Speaker 1: the system.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah. I also saw though, where the dagger, which is
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  Speaker 2: essentially an asterisk is sort of a kiss of death.
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  Speaker 2: Oh really, Like yeah, Like if you're an author who
• 11:29
  Speaker 2: got the dagger on the list, then everybody in publishing
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  Speaker 2: knows the deal.
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  Speaker 1: Oh right right, yeah, yeah, if you're an author. But
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: like if you're I saw that, it's I think so,
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  Speaker 1: Sophie Verschau said, or Vershbau said, it's most often used
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: by business authors. They don't care about the publishing world.
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: They care about their larger public facing brand.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, they said, like health and wellness books, self help books,
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  Speaker 2: diet books, and books authored by CEOs. Those are some
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  Speaker 2: of the bigest abusers and dagger getters that are gaming
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  Speaker 2: the system. So if you see some dumb diet book
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  Speaker 2: or some self help book that all of a sudden
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  Speaker 2: is like number two on the list, and you're like,
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  Speaker 2: how in the world is that selling more than whatever
• 12:14
  Speaker 2: the Harry Potter book is, it's probably because they've gained
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  Speaker 2: the system and look for that dagger. That dagger's probably
• 12:20
  Speaker 2: there another few people that have been daggered recently, and
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  Speaker 2: this is another way you can do it is Donald
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  Speaker 2: Trump Junior. The RNC bought one hundred thousand dollars worth
• 12:32
  Speaker 2: of his books and week one and Jared Kushner there
• 12:36
  Speaker 2: was a pro Trump pack that bought one hundred and
• 12:38
  Speaker 2: fifty eight thousand dollars worth of his books in week one,
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  Speaker 2: So they got the dagger. Multiple CEOs, Howard Schultz of Starbucks,
• 12:47
  Speaker 2: he got a dagger. All these daggers around, and like
• 12:51
  Speaker 2: you said, I think for the ego of some of them,
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  Speaker 2: they don't care.
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  Speaker 1: No, they don't care. And also they don't care about
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: the publishing world. They're just stepping in to it to
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: use the publishing world to boost their larger brand, right.
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: And so that's the big criticism is people who do
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: bulk purchasing. It's like the New York Times bestseller lists
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: shouldn't even include them. Yeah, because not only is it
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: it's rewarding somebody who's gaming the system, you're also leaving
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: off people who are actual like authors, that's their job.
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  Speaker 1: So being on the New York Times bestseller list is
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  Speaker 1: a really big deal for them, and being left off
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: in favor of somebody who gamed the system is that
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: much more bitter.
• 13:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Absolutely, one thing I do know stuff you should know.
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: No dagger, no, no dagger. We did not game the system.
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: We did not you got anything else.
• 13:44
  Speaker 2: No, I mean thank you for everyone who bought books
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  Speaker 2: and helped us accomplish that goal, because it's not like
• 13:49
  Speaker 2: we did it.
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: No, we definitely did not. We did not.
• 13:55
  Speaker 2: I didn't buy any of them. I got mine for free.
• 13:56
  Speaker 2: Did you buy any.
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: I've bought a couple of his gifts, but I don't
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: think that had much of an impact.
• 14:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah, those two pushed it over the edge. Exactly.
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: You got anything else?
• 14:06
  Speaker 2: I have nothing else, sir?
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: Okay, everybody short soup?
• 14:09
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