Re: Where is Valorie Jarret?
Posted by:
Michelle's BBC
()
Date: April 20, 2019 02:34PM
For a price, companies such as Result Source will help authors buy their way onto the bestseller list. The bestseller lists exclude bulk sales, so they work by buying large numbers of books in a way that appears as manual, individual sales. The purchases are also concentrated during one week, ensuring that its numbers are high enough to place in the top 10 during its crucial launch week, even if it means stockpiling and trying to resell those books over a long period of time.
“They just take three months worth of their events books, all their corporate clients and speeches, and they funnel them through this company,” the editor said.
Result Source generally bought between 10,000 and 11,000 copies in the first week in order to ensure a spot on the bestseller list, he said, another red flag with Jarrett’s 12,600 number. “Is that 11,000 bulk sales and then only 1,600 copies? If Viking paid $1 million and the organic sales were 1,600 …”
Even though it means spending significant amounts of money to buy their own books, hitting bestseller status helps authors in other ways. Indeed, Jarrett’s web page advertising her as a paid speaker already notes that she is a “Former Senior Advisor, Obama Administration; Bestselling Author.”
The Wall Street Journal ran a 2013 exposé on Result Source. One author, Soren Kaplan, said he paid the company $20,000 to $30,000 plus the cost of books.
Kaplan’s book hit third on the bestseller list its first week, and his sales went almost to zero after that. But that was enough to burnish his resume permanently with a bestseller status that has helped him get other business, he told the Journal.
After the exposé, Result Source shut down, but a similar company called Highlights emerged, the book editor said.