Posted on December 5, 2019 at 12:18 PM by Sadye Scott-Hainchek

Until the kerfuffle about Donald Trump Jr.’s bulk book sales, the average reader probably didn’t give much thought to how a book lands on the New York Times bestseller list.

If they thought anything, it was that the process was as simple as it sounds: buyers pick up the most copies of that book.

NPR’s Rose Friedman explained recently, though, that it’s much less straightforward than that.

One reason? The Times doesn’t share its methodology.

Another reason? We do know that it doesn’t just count each individual consumer who picks up a copy.

So Friedman turned to publishing industry insiders to share their understanding of how sales data is calculated.

Read their educated guesses and confirmed insights on NPR or listen to the segment below.

Categories: Today in Books

Tagged As: Bestsellers, Bookstore, NPR

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