According to Publishers Weekly, which attended a Times breakfast, the new list will appear on February 13. It will have fiction and non-fiction categories and there will be a combines print and ebook list as well.
The Times says that its print rankings are statistically weighted to reflect nationwide sales, but the ebook rankings will not be weighted “until the industry is more settled”.
More info in the article.
What data is feeding the list? The PW article doesn’t provide much more information than what is summarized here. I’m curious to know how they are culling the data and whether or not distribution breakdowns will be made available as part of an “enhanced” list “product.” That would be very helpful! Thanks.
The NYTimes bestseller lists have always been a marketing hype BS listing that merely has helped to sell books for the Times clients who advertise there. The list is no way represents true bestseller status. How do I know? read this: re nudging:
”Powers Of Persuasion” by
Michael Price | APA Monitor | 3 February 2011
Interview with Robert Cialdini, psychologist, on nudging. “If a
restaurant puts on the menu, ‘These are our most popular items’, then
those items immediately become 17-20 more popular. It’s not social
pressure, it’s social proof”.
same same: if a august newspaper puts certain books on its bseller list, even
if not true, and they routinely are not really true, those items immediately
become more popular and climb up the bestseller list even more,. it’s not
social pressure, it’s social proof. to the blindsided masses. Sigh.
same goes for the fake Amazon rankings, which mean nada.
The NYT lists have always been skewed by paid promotion… and the new ebook lists will also favor promotion through the traditional markets.
Suppose, for example, that I hit a ball out of the park and sold 10 million copies of a book… through my own website? NYT will never see those stats, and I won’t be on their list. Only if I sold well through one of their traditional channels (existing publishers and booksellers, or now, Amazon and B&N ebook services) would I be noticed.
So, this might be progress, but there are still a lot of holes in their methodology, making this a limited step forward.