Hacking The NY Times Best Seller List

http://www.manyniches.com/fun-stuff/hacking-the-ny-times-best-seller-list/

by BrandonWatson • 16 years ago

25 16 16 years ago

Pre-ordering isn't really gaming the system, it's been understood that having a following pretty much ensures you're going to hit onto a list. The real question here is whether or not these two can turn their online-audience into an offline-audience.

With authors I've frequently decided to become an online fan after being an offline fan for up to years. However I've rarely done it the other way, and never for a book.

BrandonWatson3• 16 years ago

Keith does a once a year comedy show on his birthday (Apr 15) in NYC and they get fans coming in from all over the world to see it. He's not headlining Madison Square Garden yet, but it's impressive regardless.

electromagnetic2• 16 years ago

It's the loyal fans that will pay your bills, but the loyal fans aren't likely to get you on the NYT best sellers list (unless you're Stephen King).

I would be interested on what percentage of his online readership purchases his book on pre-order/first week vs how many of his readers are buying it in 6 months to a year.

MichaelApproved• 16 years ago

So far they're #1 in a couple of categories and #119 overall.

ramit4• 16 years ago

I am a New York Times best-seller and I would be happy to answer questions about how I went from blog --> book --> products, especially about the challenges of getting people to pay online.

My book: http://www.amazon.com/Will-Teach-You-Be-Rich/dp/0761147489

My blog: http://www.iwillteachyoutoberich.com

Let me know if you guys have questions about monetizing content, book sales, or the psychology of getting people online to pay. There is so much interesting stuff I've learned over the last few years.

BrandonWatson3• 16 years ago

I bought your book months ago...great content. It was easier to have you translate the content to family than for me to do it - I'm not a published author, so I am much less believable. :)

I would love to email you some questions about my book project and where to take it from where it is. I am blwatson at gmail

ramit4• 16 years ago

Thanks!

Let's do it here so others can benefit from the back-and-forth conversation. You can email me your super-private questions separately.

JacobAldridge• 16 years ago

Thanks Ramit. Did you self / indie-publish or convince a publisher? Assuming the former, what support did you need in the way of editing, layout, printing etc?

ramit4• 16 years ago

I went through New York publishers for my first (Portfolio/Penguin) and second book (Workman Publishing).

A while back, Tim Ferriss and I did a video covering lots of stuff on writing/marketing/entrepreneurship.

Specific clip about self-publishing vs. a NY publisher: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ffYVm5g6oSk

Full 88-minute video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JesBi91m39E

aplusbi• 16 years ago

I'm always tempted to pick up Naked Came the Stranger whenever I'm at the bookstore, but I know I'll never read it. THAT book is truly the result of hacking the best seller list.

tbrooks2• 16 years ago

I worked for a media company a few years back and we would hack the NYT by selling "limited edition" autographed copies of books.

We paid authors $5/signature and sold the book for $10 over MSRP. The author pre-signed thousands of books that we bought from major retailers at a discount (orders in the 10s of thousands). Then we organized speaking events and book tours the week the book released. On the book tour, when the stores ran out of stock they would buy our autographed copies because the publisher couldn't ship them fast enough. Any books that we didn't sell back to the retailers, we would sell on our online store at markup.

The key to hacking the system was negotiating with the retailer to report (on Nielsen BookScan) X number of books on release day, X number the day after, and so on...

sireat• 16 years ago

Seems like an extremely risky strategy, even established authors happen to write books that sell badly. If you hit on a book, which you couldn't sell, what then?

Probably a good idea to filter only the "good" books, but how?

tbrooks2• 16 years ago

I don't think so, we only handled authors that had radio and/or television shows. Radio is great for driving local traffic to book stores.

We were 4/4 for #1 NY Times Bestsellers.

jaboutboul• 16 years ago

Hey Ramit, can you talk a little but more about your comment on "many startups overvalue social media and ignore channels that actually convert. Hint: Twitter. (Test it and see for yourself.)"

Which channels are better than others for securing conversions? Which outlets SHOULD startups be focusing on?

Hacking The NY Times Best Seller List

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