When I read this article about a prolific pastor-author hiring a marketing firm to put his book on the bestselling “Advice, How-to” list, I wondered how it could possibly work. I roughly understand how a company could coordinate purchasing 3,000 books, both in bulk and individual sales, but what would they do with all of those books?
Apparently, they return them. This WSJ article on authors buying their way onto bestseller lists, says some marketers believe hitting that list once is the doorway to invitations and future success. Once you’re on the list for a week, you can claim to be a bestselling author.

Last August, a book titled “Leapfrogging” hit The Wall Street Journal’s list of best-selling business titles upon its debut. The following week, sales of the book, written by first-time author Soren Kaplan, plunged 99% and it fell off the list.
Something similar happened when the hardcover edition of “Networking is Dead,” was published in mid-December. A week after selling enough copies to make it onto the Journal’s business best-seller list, more hardcover copies of the book were returned than sold, says book-sales tracker Nielsen BookScan.

Isn’t this equivalent to creating an award to give to yourself so you can claim to be an award winner?
The marketing idea hamster Seth Godin recommends ignoring the NY Times lists altogether. “The curious know that there are in fact two lists for non-fiction hardcover books. The first list, the regular list, is the list of ‘real’ books of the sort the Times would like people to read. The second list is a ghetto, a place for How To, Advice, and the always coveted ‘Miscellaneous’ books to reside. This list was invented by the editors at the Times because these books were crowding out the other, better, books from the list.”
He says questions about serving your readers become overwhelmed by concerns about placement on the Times list. Is your goal as an author to serve your readers or your message, or is it to serve the eccentricities of this list?
Jared Wilson, who has a new book out, lists five reasons buying placement on any bestseller list is dishonest, egocentric, and poor steward, among other things. Speaking particularly to pastors who write:
“If you’re simply trying to expand the audience of the gospel — or your gospel-teaching material — wouldn’t it be more effective to simply purchase thousands of copies of your book and give them away to lost people? Or, alternatively, not to sell your book at all and just give it away for free? (Did Keith Green make any bestseller lists? Has John Piper?)”

First, a brief commercial message. Due to a momentary technical lag in our diabolical plan to raise the prices on my two self-published e-books, Troll Valley remains for sale for the old $2.99 price at the time of this posting. I have no idea how long this will last, so if you want it at the old, low-self-esteem price, get it now.

Author Michael Z. Williamson sent me this link to a remarkable piece of writing by Jackson Crawford, who teaches Norse and Norwegian languages at UCLA. It’s a retelling of the Star Wars story as an Icelandic saga, and to my ear it seems letter-perfect. Also better than the movies.

But Lúkr took Artú’s bloody cape and there found the message written by Princess Leia. He began to read it. “I am no runemaster,” he said, “But these words say, ‘Help me, Víga-Óbívan Kvæggansson; you alone would dare to avenge me.’ I don’t know how to read any more words, because they are written poorly and hastily. What is this?”

Artú pretended not to speak Norse, and asked in Irish, “What is what?”

“What is what?” responded Thrípíó, “That was a question. What was written on that message which Princess Leia gave you?”

“That’s nothing,” said Artú, “An old message. I think that Princess Leia is long dead.” Thrípíó translated his words into Norse.

“Who is Princess Leia?” asked Lúkr, “What family is she from?”

Tonight, crowdsourcing. Or a social experiment. What I mean is I want your opinion.

I was talking to someone the other day about the way my novels are languishing at Amazon (my big exposure through Christianity Today the other day resulted in a total of 20 copies sold), and I mentioned that I’m asking $2.99 for a download. My friend suggested maybe that’s too little. Perhaps people assume that a $2.99 book isn’t to be taken seriously.

Baen is charging $6.99 for The Year of the Warrior.

I take it for granted anyone who reads this blog and is in a position to buy an e-book has already gotten their own $2.99 copy. So you have nothing to lose by giving me your honest opinion. Do you think the books would sell better at $4.99? $5.99?

I figure we could run a sale once or twice a year. Hard to do a sale at $2.99, unless you just make it free.

Tell me what you think.

The President is coming to my home town on Tuesday to speak at a new Amazon fulfillment plant about the middle class. I expect his speech will be akin to what he has been saying this week, what he calls “a better bargain for the middle class.” He told a Knox College audience:

I’ll lay out my ideas for how we build on the cornerstones of what it means to be middle class in America, and what it takes to work your way into the middle class in America: Job security, with good wages and durable industries. A good education. A home to call your own. Affordable health care when you get sick. A secure retirement even if you’re not rich. Reducing poverty. Reducing inequality. Growing opportunity. That’s what we need.

John Mutter suggests Amazon has a close relationship with the Obama administration, which may be the reason the president is speaking there, may be the reason they are upping the ante in their price war with bookstores. Yesterday, Amazon discounted several bestsellers even more than usual, 50-60% off retail, which industry insiders consider a declaration of war against offline booksellers. This may be the result of what Mutter says was a favorable resolution to the e-book case before courts this month. Amazon won out, when Apple’s efforts to change the model for releasing and pricing e-books failed.

Some people continued to worry that Amazon will price booksellers out of business, and so offline browsing and friendly recommendations will be go the way of the buggy cart. But I doubt that.

Today Kindle deals include three books by Oliver Pötzsch for $0.99 and $1.99. Her latest book, The Poisoned Pilgrim: A Hangman’s Daughter Tale, is only $4.99 for Kindle.

The last day of my stay-cation. My big project was running around to hardware stores, looking for replacement furnace filters. Did not find what I needed. Bought one online instead, which probably worked out cheaper. But let the record show, I endeavored to support businesses in my community.

I don’t think I’ve mentioned that Baen has put my novel Wolf Time on sale again in e-book form. They promise to have it on Amazon soon. I’ll try to keep you posted.

Love that cover. It has nothing to do with the story, but it’s a great cover.