Controversies
After UK thriller writer Mark Dawson admitted — or boasted? — about buying his way onto the Sunday Times bestseller list with a modest purchase of 400 hardcovers, Nielsen Bookscan has recalculated that Top 10 chart to remove Dawson’s book and the paper will issue a correction. Nielsen says they initially believed the purchase was related to a virtual book signing. Dawson, who still promotes his “top 10” listing on his Twitter page, said in a Twitter thread he was only cheating a little, not a lot: “If I was intent on ‘gaming the system’ I would have bought 10k copies, sat on them forever and been number one. (I wouldn’t have discussed it on a popular podcast, either).” A successful self-published author, Dawson sells online courses such as How to Write A Bestseller ($297).
Retail Sales
The NYT shares with the general public how book sales rose during the pandemic at big box retail outlets such as Target and Walmart, which stayed open as book chains and independent booksellers closed. Midwest-based superstore chain Meijer “is in the process of expanding the book department in about 80 of its 253 stores, part of a plan that was in place before the pandemic.”
At Readerlink, which distributes to a substantial portion of nonbook retailers, sales in the first week of April were 34 percent higher than the same time the previous year. The paper doesn’t mention the larger and more recent issue at Readerlink, which suffered a significant hack of their systems about a month ago. In response to our query, ceo Dennis Abboud reports that, “Our systems have been restored and substantially enhanced security protocols have been implemented under guidance from the cybersecurity firm’s experts.”
Legal
The punk band The Misfits settled their copyright infringement lawsuit against Abrams over publication of the photobook Scream with Me. The parties informed the court of their voluntary dismissal with prejudice, with each party paying its own legal fees and costs. Details of the settlement were not disclosed.
