After about 3 months, her books appeared in bulk warehouse sales for 50 cents each.

Cruz's books will end up there soon.

together. Not sure it was slurpee. I think it was poopee.

bulk sales book club. Each month for 50c you can get three copies of every republicans book. At least those who are capable of writing one, on there own, without help. It is a good thing there is spiel check, I mean spellcheck, these days.

As Jeb said:
“Big syllable words and lots of fancy conferences and meetings and – We’re not leading. That creates chaos."
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10026967042

where he said that the American worker is basically lazy and should work harder and more hours.When in fact the rest of the first world countries call the US the "no vacation nation" and that we work 30% more than other countries. And something about a new book by Charles Murray, that he likes (I guess he can read some books), where the author states how working class white families are starting to act like working class African American families, with fewer marriages and less labor force participation. I am sure that will attract all the voters that Trump has isolated. These guys seem to think people don't know anything, when in fact it is vice a versa.

# by now.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=6963058

Um... heh... hee hee...

Sorry... can't... *ROFL* stop... *wheeze* laughing at... this...

You stole my line! BWAHAHAHAHAA!!!!

Noooo...

Hey Ted, Jesus is crying now.

Although since that was contingent on winning the lottery, it was iffy to begin with.

More info pls!

The books didn't sell in regular bookstores or Amazon, so off to Costco/Sams/BJ's in the hope you can recoup at least some of the cost.

It's considered prime real estate for publishers who want to sell tons of copies of bestselling books. Costco corporate decides which books will move well, and that's what they order. If they think Ann Coulter's book will sell tons, they'll stock it. Ditto for Obama's books.

Bill O'Reily, Glenn Beck, and the list goes on. I was going to complain to management, but the wait line was too long. I still might write a letter. There were NO liberal-leaning books on the table.

But, maybe that's because liberals are more educated and know how to read?

which was a dumping ground for poor sellers.
Dunno if they are still around.

While their bookshelves are not exactly a place I'd go to find intellectual stimulation, I have glanced at the wares and didn't feel like it was only RW books. Lots of remaindered books and other jetsam but they seem to cross many dimensions. Now, perhaps the RW books end up more frequently in the "bag for a buck" category.

I think proper punishment for anyone that buys multiple copies of such claptrap would be to force them to read every copy from front to back.

all the right-wing books, so I looked for a centrist or liberal book.

There was not one.

I think that's bad for the country.

But perhaps the bottom line is most important. And it is a very bottom line.

lots of not so overt racism - the area is a destination location for racists from Southern CA and elsewhere - the Costco is as you described.

Lots and lots of republican garbage, cookbooks, children's books. Little to no liberal, and I have never seen a Progressive tome, or even a paperback, ever.

... the idiots who support you, so the PAC buys your book, gives them away to donors.

You get the royalties to boost your bank account and book sale numbers to boost your ego.

Huckabee, Palin and a bunch of others are making a nice living bilking Republican donors.

I believe the Repukian grifters have found an easy get-rich plan...why else would all the CLOWNS be fighting so hard to get in the CAR?

I worked in publishing quite a few years and am still indirectly working with the industry. What Cruz did is actually very common in the industry. It's just called bulk buying. An organization or marketing company (often one that you hire) buys your book in bulk, often pre-pub. This helps boost you on the best-seller list. It costs you money to do this, but not as much as you make in the long run. A short jump in sales means notable best-seller projections. You are invited on morning talk shows. You often get paid for this and you get to promote your book.

The book industry is often seedy and manipulates the numbers. Margins are VERY thin and the competition is thick. The article itself even said, "New York Times spokesperson Eileen Murphy told Politico, 'We have uniform standards that we apply to our best seller list, which includes an analysis of book sales that goes beyond simply the number of books sold... Our goal is that the list reflect authentic best sellers, so we look at and analyze not just numbers, but patterns of sales for every book.'”

So the raw numbers you see listed by Amazon, B&N, and NYT are not even mathematically accurate. The patterns and analysis she cites are actually nothing more than promoting a book. The numbers are a fib. Those numbers are often what they hope to sell. Their so-called numbers are nothing more than creating a buzz.

As for Cruz, I suspect one of two things. There was some dispute about the bulk buying process and/or someone got into a telephone argument. I actually would not be surprised if it's a small contract glitch that NYT capitalized on to sell even more of his book. The NYT, after all, lists all kinds of political books on its lists, so this is really nothing exceptional. Now, they can actually leave him off the top (10, 25, or whatever) of the list, make room for yet ANOTHER book from someone else, and still have the publicity to sell his book. You see crap like this all the time.

Your speculation is interesting...

And welcome to DU!

A lot of the weird books are, yes, books that you would never expect to see on the list or things that no one would ever pick up. Politics is a small slice of the genres. It happens in all categories. It happens with reviews. The prolific woman on Amazon who reviews all of those books does not review them. If you do the math, then you can calculate that it is impossible to review that many thousands of books in one year.

If you're going to be a successful publicist, then you almost have to be cutthroat. You don't tell B&N that you hope the book will sell. You tell them it WILL sell. Prime shelf space comes at a premium. Margins in publishing are very, very thin. The common question asked in meetings is, "Can we create a buzz with this book?" So any contract disagreement can be magnified and capitalized on to sell even more, no matter how slim. Everyone knows that there is no bad publicity. Publicist and best seller spokes people make an art and living out of this.

Thanks for the greetings.

...... for a long time now.

Children, the GOP has been playing games with the New York Times bestseller list since Reagan was in office. Some winger - yes, Ann Coulter, I'm looking at you although it is very painful to do so - puts out an unreadable tome, the hard-right think tanks buy an entire press run, it makes the New York Times bestseller list, and two months later it's in the dollar stores and they give it to you when you join the Conservative Book Club. While it's nice they're trying to fix their problem, doing it now is like locking the barn door 35 years after the horse escaped.

on John Kerry (Unfit for Command) on sale on Ebay for $0.01 a couple of months after the 2004 election. Seriously, it was on sale for a penny. $5 for shipping and handling, of course, but a penny for the book itself. And a rip-off even at that price. When it first came out, and the author was making the rounds on the cable shows I decided I'd look at it for a laugh, but determined I'd never pay for a new copy. I'd buy it on Ebay after all the poor rubes had been sent their complementary free copies, purchased and distributed by the Heritage Foundation just for the sake of getting it to the top of the best seller list.

best seller list. I heard he's got about a thousand copies of it in boxes in his basement.

The highest selling books are bought by people who can't read past a second grade level .

No one reading at a second grade level would EVER spend the money to BUY a book, or even accept a freebie if offered.

Also, "book" covers a lot of territory, some of which could appeal to totally illiterate persons. This was not a put down of those with low grade level reading abilities, but from actual experience in selling of books. Sadly, books are far down the lists of "stuff to spend your money on" for all too many with reading problems. My own brother is dyslexic, and from before it was commonly understood. He likes to read for knowledge and is smart enough to know that it's best found in books. He'll struggle for two weeks on a book I'll whip through overnight. His technical reading level is late elementary, but given enough time to read he'll absorb it, having a higher I.Q. than mine.

If only Republican voters cared about this sort of thing.

I remember when every shrieking cockamamie screed out of any CON's ghost-writer's keyboard, from ann coulter to rush limbaugh, were bulk buys, and they simply were allowed to stovepipe themselves onto the NYTimes best-seller lists. Even when it was noted there was a bulk buy.

The "think" tanks on the Dark Side did that a lot - to artificially punch things up and make them look like what the propaganda said they were: BEST-SELLERS! On the NEW YORK TIMES BEST-SELLER LIST! They claim they hate the NYTimes but MAN are they whores to make that best-seller list. And the limbaugh people would buy up truckloads of his books, and THEN, they'd use 'em as backdrops for the bullshit TV show he had for awhile. Indeed - the rear wall of his on-camera set was literally a wall of his books. Stacks upon stacks, row by row by row clear across the back of the stage just behind where he sat with his chair and the guest chair(s) and a little table in between, too. THAT is how they claimed the title of "best-seller" for him. And it worked great til his TV show went off the air - after only a few seasons.

And that spending program isn't wasted, either. You know all the ads you see online with these internet radio shows or the glenn beck show or whoever - subscribe and we'll send you a free copy of blah-blah-blah's NEW BEST-SELLER!!!!! Or pay this fee or this special introductory price for a year's membership in the blah-blah-blah foundation/institute/whatever-the-hellhole and we'll send you this FREE gift! A brand new copy of blah-blah-blah's BRAND NEW BEST-SELLER!!! Currently selling in stores for $49.95 but NOW, for THIS SPECIAL INTRODUCTORY PRICE it's (fill in the blank here). Or We'll send you this FREE GIFT! Just for signing up! And if they had whichever CON stiff "wrote" said "BEST-SELLER!!!" might have to drag his/her lazy pampered ass into the Heritage Foundation offices some afternoon and sign a bunch of 'em. OR - they're already signed and they didn't sell at Barnes & Noble on the promenade so the store shipped them back to the manufacturer and they sell off the signed and other excess copies to some foundation for cut-rate, "non-profit" discount bulk rates.

I remember reading something about how Kim Kardashian was spotted buying an armload of "Vogue" magazines when she and Kanye West were on the cover together. Well, how else do you "prove" that the issue "sold out"?

It's quite the racket. And you probably thought the only numbers the GOP manipulated up the wazoo were numbers of votes...

and that's a really good thing. I remember thinking how hideous it was to see Ann Coulter on their best seller list, and we knew at the time it had to be due to bulk sales. Guess the right wing will no longer get away with their deceptive practice of making right wing books appear more popular than they really are.

Tee hee.

denoting a bulk buy. And that was it. They didn't seem to care. They'd note it but it wouldn't make any difference, and it would certainly count as a sales figure to get them onto the best-seller list.

Guess they finally decided to stop overlooking that little "technicality." Wonder when that happened? Cuz it never used to make any difference, or disqualify a book because it was merely bulk sales.

As I was reading the OP and the responses, I was making mental notes about the post I was going to write. Thanks to you, the bases are covered.

On another note, I was sitting in the faculty lounge the other day, talking about books with other English professors. A person made a comment about a book, which was followed by, "I mean, it's not like it's a NY Times best seller or anything." This was meant as a compliment to the author of the book that we were discussing.

So it appears English teachers have recognized the uselessness of the NY Times bestseller list for a while now.


Cher

nothing in the NYT is correct other than sports scores, it's a socialist commie rag. Funny that.

they can't be getting very much for their investments in these losers

a republican writes a book.

Would seem bulk buys from his superpacs (which he can't coordinate with) is just a way of transferring the money to his pocket. Making the bestseller list may just be an added bonus.

Ann Coulter's "best-sellers" are traditionally dumped here in Canada. They show up - cases and cases of them - in dollar-store type places and sell for two bucks, at the same time they are allegedly flying off the shelves in the US at full retail price.

be bought for a buck.

Sarah Failin' announced she is releasing a "devotional book" in time for Christmas.

Now, I'm not big into devotional books. My mother was. As I recall, all her devotional books had a devotion for all 365 days of the year, plus a few extras.

Sarah announced her book will have 260 devotionals. ???????

The book will be published by Regnery Publishing, a rightwing press that prints the likes of Limbaugh, Coulter, Hannity, Beck, Corsi, and a host of other wingnuts.

I can hardly wait for SarahPAC to purchase a zillion or so copies, then, listen to Sarah shriek when she's not on the best-seller list.

Scratch that, I'm suprised that he can even write a book.

Most of the those books are ghost written, of course, but Cruz has an impressive college background.
What grades he got is another matter.

...is definitely one of his own biggest fans - maybe even the biggest.

for it?!

Ah, I just went to the link.. and yeah, just beginning to catch on to it.. Bad Luck, cruz.. yeah your pac had money to burn on your stupid books but now it looks twice as bad that you didn't make the NYT best seller lists.

Boohoo.. cruz will say something stupid.. like "the NYT is lying".. rofl

really haven't been paying that much attention.

Sooooo pre-dic-table.

We need book sale Razzies.

His record as a public servant to his constituents is very lame, and he no sooner reached Capitol Hill than he was gunning for publicity in every way he could (Green Eggs and Ham...anyone)? Of course, to be scrupulously fair, he's far from the first to use the old "buy up your own books" stunt.

Say it ain't so .....Shoeless Joe....

I must say ... highly apros-pos ...

Because that's how L.Ron Hubbard's appalling books got there.
Amusingly, I noticed that several anthologies edited by him appeared years after he died, as well as some of the "Battlefield Earth" dreck.

Must be a wealthy guy, was he a hedge fund manager?

IRS should look into this, inflating your own income doesn't sound
legit.

One suspects this about a lot of other right wingers and their supposed "best sellers."

Either they bought directly or a PAC bought them and handed them out at their appearances.

republican liars, cheats and thieves.

Whatcha wanna bet they had a little help getting there, too. $$$$$$$$$$$$

if you can't beat 'em, cheat 'em!!!!!!!!!!

They will often stick copies in the pews at churches with the blessing of the right-wing preacher.

I call it "literal masturbation".

The dagger

Ann Coulter became a "New York Times Best Selling Author" due to bulk buys by her publisher and several right wing groups at the beginning of her career. This was the justification for having her on air to spout her nonsense. Bill O'Reiily's early books were bulk bought too but the buys for Coulter's books was so egregious that the NYT used a dagger to denote this practice. Note they still put her on the list so they were part of the system of creating her legitimacy.

So it is written. So it is done.

way of payola for politicians. Murdock bought most of Gingrich's book to thank him for pulling the strings to get him citizenship, which allowed him to by Fox.

Of course they have little choice.
The Illiterate Republican base has little use for books beyond doorstops or kindling.
And no one with an education will pay to be insulted by Republican lies.

were on vacay last week when it came out...but there surrogates couldn't come up with a very good answer...heh...

So I had a little fun telling this story at lunch today. Some clown brought up a rebuttal he read on NRO (which means no real rebuttal at all), but then he starts reading from a Harper Collins press release saying there is no evidence of bulk buying. Anyone have an answer I can use on this one?

Here is the link:
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/421039/ted-cruz-book-nyt-bestseller-list-harpercollins-bulk-buying

Fuck NRO

Good day, and welcome to DU ... hope you enjoy your stay

Now that that's out of the way, let me just say that ...unfortunately ... an awful LOT of us have seen the whole "I was arguing with some right-winger today and they came up with THIS ... how do I counter their seemingly compelling argument, fellow liberal brethren?!?" ... lets call it a 'method of making a political point' ... more times than we can count on DU. Especially from people with <10 posts to their names.

What this all amounts to is ... you're probably going to have to establish your bona-fides a bit more strongly before people here are inclined to give this whole 'angle' of yours ... the proverbial time of day.

If you're an actual Liberal, then surely you understand, and won't take this personally.

In the meanwhile, here's a freebie for ya: "Who gives a shit what Harper-Collins, the MARKETERS of the book, have to say? The NYTimes are the ones who decide whether the purchasing patterns for the book match their criteria, and this book simply does NOT MEET said criteria ... despite 100's of Right-Wing authors' books making the list, dating back DECADES (which clearly shows ... it's not some political bias on their part). So, doesn't it SUGGEST something ... when the purchasing pattern for THIS book is SO out of line/sketchy that not even the NYTimes will sanction it's appearance on their list!?!"

Let us know how that goes for ya ... & just know ... that we're rootin' for ya.

Some articles say that Cruz's sales would place him at #1 or #2 on the nonfiction bestseller list. I'm familiar with numbers for fiction bestseller lists, and that wouldn't get you to the top of the list. If you're talking combined digital and print sales, then this number is really puny.

know where the felons and criminal come from around the states. TX breeds them then moves them to other states to hide their criminal records. Gov. Scott of FL is one of the most famous right now.

The only way they can win is by cheating and being liars.

Is the only way people like O'Reilly and Sarah Palin make the best seller list.

Then the books are given away, as boobie prizes at fundraising events.

I believe she was one of the 1st pundits whose books were manipulated onto the bestseller lists,
by the use of this "mutual back-scratching" strategy.

The righwing has all that Korporate $$$ behind it, so that makes strategies like this possible.

An amazing simulation of "best-sellers".

Ann Coulter/Hannity/O;Reilly/et al have been doing this forever...every time there is a cspan event that covers Cato/AEI/Heritage or any other special event they have routinely, the moderator will sometimes say to pick up their complimentary books on their way out. Perhaps the cost is figured into their entry price, but when you give the books away are they truly "sold"? I also see them routinely showing up in bargain bins at dollar stores/Big Lots etc.

All these books say pretty much the same thing over and over (with a new title each time)..and then of course when they have a "new" book to promote, they get paid by Fox, anf their publisher (also right wing press) for the book tour..

It's just a way to keep these kooks busily employed and to spread the GOP propaganda..all under the guise of literature