What Is the New York Times Best Seller List?

According to Wikepedia, "The New York Times Best Seller List is a weekly chart in The New York Times that tracks the week's best-selling books in the United States." It started in April 1942. "Unlike some subsequent lists of best sellers, The New York Times list is not based upon total sales figures, but instead upon surveys of a selected sample of retail booksellers." For example, Barnes and Noble and Amazon are counted, but your small mom-and-pop bookstore probably isn't. "The list is divided into Fiction and Non-Fiction sections, which each contain fifteen titles."

"While some believe a book is only truly successful if it appears on the list, the Times maintains that the list is simply that, with no assumption as to its intrinsic value. Nevertheless, some have accused publishers of marketing books in a manner designed to place them on the list. Examples include the works by L. Ron Hubbard, Battlefield Earth and Mission Earth.

Similarly, some listed books are flagged with a dagger (†) indicating that a significant number of bulk orders had been received by retail bookstores. Since it is normally more economical to place bulk orders for classroom or resale use through wholesalers or publishers, this might indicate that the purchases were made to increase a book's placement in the best seller list." (In other words it might be possible to buy your way onto the list? Hmm... wonder how many books that would take? Sounds like a chunk-o-change to me!)

"In 2001, a separate section of the best seller list was created to track the sale of children's books. Some have contended that the children's book list was created especially so that the Harry Potter book series, which dominated the list for over two years, could be moved to a separate section and other titles allowed to appear on the list."

If you're interested in seeing the current New York Times Best Seller List, go here.