The New York Times Best Sellers

 

The New York Times Best Sellers List!

Most of the authors wish to be on The New York Times best sellers list. But have you ever thought how does The New York Times determine this list; and how authentic is their process to evaluate a book and then decide whether it can be a part of the prestigious club of The New York Times best sellers list? 

There is one undeniable fact when it comes to running an enterprise as large as The New York Times that wants to make some profit and pay its employees a well deserved service remuneration. And this fact is called “Business Secret!” Therefore, one can say that the exact method for compiling the data obtained from the booksellers is classified as a Trade Secret by the Book Review department at The New York Times. By following this approach they ensure the authenticity of the product and eliminate the chances of people rigging the system. At New York Times they appear to be following the Business Secret Protocol with strict adherence, to the extent that The Book Review Department ​​does not  know anything about the News Surveys Department's precise methods. So it would be right to say that The New York Times Best Sellers List is authentic and it is something that the readers can rely on.

Moreover, the list is prepared by the editors of the "News Surveys" Department, not by The New York Times Book Review Department, where it is published. The list is compiled based on weekly sales reports obtained from selected samples of independent and chain bookstores and wholesalers throughout the United States.

Here are some important statistics

Quoting from  an EPJ Data Science study

Methodology: Big Data based

Primary data set: ​​Analyze every New York Times bestselling

Data Range

Date: ​​New York Times bestselling book from 2008 to 2016

Volume : 100,000 new, hardcover print books published each year

Main Data Set	Output ( Volume / Percentage )
Data gathering frequency	Weekly
Data compilation as a set of data in terms of receipt of live data feeds from various book stores to classify that data as a complete data set for a particular week	Monday afternoon
Books that make it to The New York Times best seller list	Less than 500	0.5 percent
Duration	Most of these books appear in the list for not more than a week	26 percent
Minimum sales benchmark	Sell from 1,000 to 10,000 copies per week	Median sales fluctuate between 4,000 and 8,000 in fiction	2,000–6,000 in non-fiction
Annual sales average	Most of these books sell from 10,000 to 100,000 copies in their first year

However, you cannot legally challenge these stats. If a book makes it to the New York Times Best Seller List, it is definitely going to add a tremendous boost to the sales of the book. So, as an author of the book featured in the New York Times list of best selling books, you have every reason to open the cork of a champagne bottle! However, if an author feels that his/her book had fulfilled all sales benchmarks and should have been included in the New York Times Best Sellers List, which for some reason was not included in this coveted list of the best selling books. It is legally impossible to hold The New York Times guilty of this oversight or incorrect assessment ( According to the author of the book that did not get included in the New York Times list of best selling books )  Afterall, the New York Times best sellers list is editorial content, not objective factual content, so the Times reserves the right to exclude books from the list. It explicitly admits, the list is prepared by the EDITORS of the "News Surveys" department, not by The New York Times Book Review department, where it is published. The word “EDITORS,” has a wide ranging legal implication and the editorial content is protected under the constitution of The United States of America.

Protection offered to Editorial Content by the constitution of the USA.

Now, what should you do? Sue The New York Times! That would be like attempting to steal the scent from a rose. And anybody with jurisprudence governing the editorial content, would not get involved in this battle where the rose will always have the legal immunity to retain its scent, no matter how hard one tries to steal it from the rose. The scent is an inherent attribute of the rose. Likewise when it comes to editorial content, it is an opinion, information or expression of one's views, exclusive to that editor or editorial bench, and challenging these views is almost impossible.

However, The books that feature in the best selling list of the New York Times, is prepared with lot of statistical precision, and from what one can make out based on the web resources available on this topic; it is a diligently and painstakingly prepared list, and the teams involved, work very hard to compile this list of best selling books.

New York Times Best Seller List Process

I recently concluded writing, and editing my first sci-fi novel, They Loved in 2075, and it only features on amazon as of now. Seeing it feature in the New York times best seller list, will be like a dream come true. Nevertheless, as a writer, a sense of fulfillment often submerges me and the writer within me. Although the sci-fi novel, They Loved in 2075, has not made it to any best seller list yet. Even on amazon, it is coping with its wee web presence because the search engines have no clue about its existence. So where does this feeling of fulfillment arise from? From a simple fact, “​​There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.” And I decided not to live with the agony, rather, just like the true American spirit, of which I am a great admirer. I decided to dare to venture into the sea and not contemplate on the shore where the sea of possibilities is reduced to a beautiful mirage gazing continuously at me. 

I decided to act and write the sci-fi novel. Now just like other writers I am toiling to make it sell. Once it sells, I shall then work on making it sell well, and perhaps then it will be worthy of being a best seller. Till that happens, I shall pursue the rudimentary essentials of promoting the sci-fi novel, They Loved in 2075. Without being misled by the fact that I have until 2075, to achieve this goal.

What is the sci-fi novel, They Loved in 2075 about?

Here is a brief overview.

The sci-fi novel, They Loved In 2075, explores how love, relationships, feelings of empathy and romance will evolve in the midst of our growing interaction with machines, capable of thinking and feeling like humans. In this sci-fi novel, a young boy takes you on an epic journey to find the answer to a very important question that concerns all of us today, "Can love and humans survive together in 2075?" Saabir, a young boy, falls in love in 2075. To know whether he fell in love with a real human or a machine read the sci-fi novel, They Loved In 2075. 

They say, "To get the job of a lifetime, sometimes you have to sell your soul." What if the human soul were to be replaced by artificial intelligence and synthetic feelings in 2075! In that scenario what would translate as SOUL or LOVE? Discover how reality will tend to bend and how new ideas will surface in 2075. The sci-fi novel titled, They Loved In 2075, deals with these scenarios and forces us to think how humanity can reclaim its originality and organic feelings of love and relationships. 

Also, I take this opportunity to congratulate all the authors whose books featured in The New York Times best seller list. As for those who were expecting that their book/s would make it to the list as well, but for some reason it did not. There is always next time, and they are not alone. As writers, whether famous or not so famous, and the ones who consider themselves to be infants compared to the titans of literature, let us not lose heart because all writers eventually write to taste life twice, in the moment and in retrospect! Atleast I do, and it is a munificent feeling. So you might as well.

Cheers to all the authors who had many reasons to open the cork of a champagne bottle, and those who are yet to feature in the list, let us derive our inspiration from Mr. Ernest Hemingway, “There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.”

Reference : Wikipedia

PS. These stats are derived from resources available online. And I do not claim their accuracy. That is completely, and exclusively readers' discretion.