The old saw of authors “buying” their way onto bestseller lists through carefully timed bulk orders gets a fresh twist in Friday’s WSJ, which reports on the San Diego-based company ResultSource. The marketing firm, according to the paper, charges authors “thousands of dollars for its services” to buy copies of the authors’ own books–mostly as pre-orders–to boost opening week sales (and many of those copies are then returned). The service is particularly popular for business book authors, who can monetize the “bestseller” credit (even when it’s a single week on the list) for years at speaking engagements and other lucrative […]
