New York Times Best Sellers Hardcover Nonfiction

[babsbunny]

I had no idea Americans were this stupid!

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/07/books/bestseller/besthardnonfiction.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

[Solly Mack]

1. Chances are the Corsi book was mass purchased by one or two sources

Which is how the right wing does it

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

2. Do you know what the little "t" symbol in parentheses means?

It means bulk sales. The NYT knows that some books are bought in bulk in order to drive up sales and get them on the list. So they denoted those books with that symbol. The Corsi book and others of its ilk, like Ann Coulter's crap, are typically sold in very large quantities to right-wing groups who then give them away or sell them at a large discount. Their presence on the best-seller list is meaningless.

[sharp_stick]

3. Thanks I did not know that

I always thought these books were pumped by the racist Hannity and O'Reilly loving putzes out there but I didn't know that the Times noted that. Nice to see.

[pnorman]

7. I knew that, from having learned it on DU four years ago,

but I had totally forgotten it! I notice that the Susskind book also has that tiny mark, and wonder who's pumping that one.

But Corsi clearly could NOT have gotten to the top of the list by his own "merits". I heard him on Thom Hartmann recently. Thom treats such people with the utmost courtesy and consideration, and the listening audience ends up a little wiser for it. But Corsi was a flop, and only the second guest ever, to abruptly terminate the interview. (I believe Dick Morris was the other). A caller commented: "He can dish it out, but he can't take it!"

pnorman

[Greybnk48]

4. except it gets the authors on TV talk shows to spew their lies.

[KharmaTrain]

5. If A Slimeball Shits In The Woods...

The good thing is after Corsi's "appearance" on Larry King, he all has vanished from the teevee. Now I suspect we'll see this scumbag to try to get face time this week in Minneapolis and he's getting plenty of pump from Faux and hate radio. The flip side of Corsi is that the GOOPers don't seem too comfy with him, either...as by giving him a higher profile, out comes a lot of damaging stuff he's written not just about Democrats, but about Gramps, too.

In '04, Corsi had the Slimeboaters to hide behind, this year he has no John O'Neill to hide behind...and on his own, he's his own worse enemy.

Cheers...

[still_one]

6. A dagger (†) indicates that some bookstores report receiving bulk orders.

This indicates most likely that extreme right wing organizations are buying it in bulk

[alcibiades_mystery]

8. Worse than that...it means that the publisher is receiving bulk orders

These things never even see a bookstore. They are shipped in bulk directly from the printing press to the storeroom of some conservative foundation, which then turns around and offers them as gifts for donations, and the like. In publishing, this is called "special market sales." So, for example, when I re-upped my subscription to Salon several years ago, they sent me a copy of Scott Rosenberg's "Dreaming in Code" as a re-subscription gift. That's because they bulk ordered probably 20,000 copies of the book at a premium, which is more than offset by my subscription costs.

The bestseller category still measures copies distributed for more than cost by the publisher. So, Corsi writes his poorly researched hitpiece, and every conservative organization makes a "donation" to conservative publisher by bulk ordering the book, which they then either give away or - and this is likely for the majority of copies - hold in storage until it's time to pulp them. The point of this end-around procedure is to get the book to the top of the best-seller list, which gives it the requisite publicity to allow various media interviews for the author, coverage by newscasts, etc, essentially "free advertising" for the political propaganda unmarked and unregulated by election laws. The news organizations graciously comply, giving Corsi valuable airtime to spew his nonsenses, all at no cost and under no regulation whatsoever. The advertising is not, of course, free. They have to pay through the elaborate ruse of writing the book, printing the book, shipping the book to the bulk storage destinations, etc. The book itself may sell some copies, and gains some illusion of legitimacy by being a "book." But the real prize is the free airtime and internet buzz over the claims, which few ever see in enough detail to evaluate. It is the bypassing of election laws and the veneer of credibility that drives this extremely wasteful, if effective, practice.