Anonymous official's book replaces Trump Jr's 'fake No 1' on bestseller list

[riversedge]

Source: the guardian






A Warning knocks Triggered from atop the New York Times nonfiction list amid reports Republicans attempted to boost sales


@MartinPengelly Fri 29 Nov 2019 09.40 EST Last modified on Fri 29 Nov 2019 10.02 EST


Donald Trump Jr has not seen every event on his book tour go smoothly but he has had the eager support of the Republican party in driving sales of Triggered: How the Left Thrives on Hate and Wants to Silence Us.

He has, however, lost top spot on the New York Times nonfiction bestseller list to A Warning, the book by an anonymous Trump official which presents Trump Jr’s father, the president, as a menace to the republic itself.
Donald Trump Jr walks out of Triggered book launch after heckling – from supporters


Tony Schwartz, the author who ghosted Donald Trump’s own bestseller The Art of the Deal and has become a stringent Trump critic, greeted the news on Twitter.

“Such poetic justice,” he wrote. “A Warning by Anonymous replaces Donald Trump Jr’s fake #1 book from atop the NYTimes bestseller list.”

................................................

The Times said “at least nine Republican organizations, GOP candidates or advocacy groups are selling Triggered or promoting Mr Trump’s book tour, according to emails obtained … interviews and disclosures filed with the Federal Election Commission (FEC)”.


Among groups identified as buying Trump Jr’s book in bulk were the National Republican Campaign Committee, the National Republican Senatorial Committee, the Republican National Committee (RNC), Citizens United and Turning Point USA.........................................

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/nov/29/a-warning-anonymous-bestseller-donald-trump-jr-triggered

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Who's triggered now? Seven times Donald Trump Jr out-snowflaked the left

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/nov/11/donald-trump-jr-triggered-protest

The president’s son walked out of his own event on Sunday. It’s not the first time he’s shown some sensitivity

Donald Trump Jr walks out of Triggered book launch after heckling – from supporters

First published on Mon 11 Nov 2019 16.00 EST

Donald Trump Jr’s own supporters turned on him on Sunday. Photograph: Étienne Laurent/EPA

This weekend, during a launch for his book Triggered: How The Left Thrives on Hate and Wants to Silence Us, Donald Trump Jr was, well, triggered.

His thesis is that leftwingers can’t handle differences in opinion. Because of that, he argues they routinely engage in a number of silencing techniques – such as no-platforming – to discourage dissenting voices.

But it was his own supporters who pushed back against him on Sunday, when they shouted at him for refusing to engage in a Q&A during an event in Los Angeles to support his book launch. Trump Jr reportedly tried to argue that he didn’t want to take questions because the left might distort his words online, which sounds a lot like not being up for open discourse.


When the crowd become loud enough to drown him out, he stormed off stage. How’s that for being thin-skinned?

As it turns out, Don Jr is actually incredibly easily triggered himself. Let us count the ways: ..................

[napi21]

1. Sounds to me like the subject of his book is labeling "the Left" with what the Right is

guilty of. That's what Daddy does al the time too.

[pat_k]

2. I'm sure there are hordes of flunkies ...

... running around buying Triggered in bulk to get it back on top.

Does the NYT bestsellers list do anything to gauge number of real sales to individuals vs. bulk sales to organizations that just end up shredding the books they can't unload?

[C Moon]

4. A la L. Ron Hubbard's Dianetics.

[pat_k]

6. Confused about how nytimes counts bulk purchases

I poked around and found the following bit in the "About the Best Sellers" page.

https://www.nytimes.com/books/best-sellers/methodology/

Sales are defined as completed transactions by vendors and individual end users during the period on or after the official publication date of a title. Institutional, special interest, group or bulk purchases, if and when they are included, are at the discretion of The New York Times Best-Seller List Desk editors based on standards for inclusion that encompass proprietary vetting and audit protocols, corroborative reporting and other statistical determinations. When included, such bulk purchases appear with a dagger (†).

When they say, "such bulk purchases appear with a dagger (†)"... where are these "bulk purchases" identified? We don't see a break down anywhere and I've never noticed a dagger symbol anywhere on the best sellers listings pages. What's up with this?

I don't think Triggered could have made the list without inclusion of bulk purchases, so where's the dagger?

[Bernardo de La Paz]

9. I read a report on DU there was a dagger on the list, report not long after it came out. . . . nt

[wiley]

13. Good Point

Where is it?

[C Moon]

3. He didn't want question and answer, because he didn't write the book. Probably hasn't even read it.

[Berlin Expat]

8. I suspect that

Jr made some relatively trivial contributions to "Triggered" but that overall it was almost certainly ghostwritten, much like "Art of the Deal" was.

[SergeStorms]

5. The GOP has done that for ages.

Buying books written (or ghost-written) by fascist reich-wingers and offered them as "premiums" for joining this, or subscribing to that. They can't be honest about anything. Ann Coulter wouldn't have written more than one book if it weren't for dishonest republicans boosting the sales of their water carriers. How many republicans can even read, for chrisakes!

And Juniors book being touted as nonfiction is fiction in itself!

[pat_k]

7. Question

Can you provide any insight on how NT Times bestseller list deals with bulk sales?

Here's my post up thread. I think I'm missing something.
https://www.democraticunderground.com/10142401969#post6

[ancianita]

10. I just found this link on how NYT builds its Best Seller List. Hope it helps.

Given what I've read here, I'm surprised he got on the non-fiction list at all. Thanks for posting about him and the weird politics that seem to be behind the NYT lists.

(Italics are mine)

The timeframe changes depending on this list, but the more velocity of sales you create—meaning, the more sales you pack into the shorter period of time—the better.

It is hard to sell 5,000 books in a year. To sell 5,000 in a week is ridiculously difficult, as evidenced that only a very small percentage of all books published each year do it.

In fact, barring some extreme stroke of luck, the only way I’ve ever seen first-time (or lesser known) authors hit any significant bestseller list is by first creating a large platform with an installed audience that is waiting for the book, and then selling the book into that audience...

The Times list is a survey list, not a tabulation of total sales. This means that they poll a curated selection of booksellers to estimate sales. They literally decide which bookstores and retail outlets are “important” and then only count those sales, ignoring all other sales.

They also heavily weight independent bookstore sales. This is because they think that the type of people who shop at indie bookstores are more “serious” readers and thus their reading decisions deserve more attention. I’m serious, they have said this in public.

They also focus on individual sales and try to not include bulk sales in their calculations. They do this to prevent people from buying their way onto the list (which we discuss below). If you sell 1,000 copies to a company as part of a speaking engagement deal, this is a great way to move copies and make money, but it’s not very effective for hitting the list, because they won’t count it.

https://scribewriting.com/get-best-seller-list/#get-on-them

[LiberalLovinLug]

11. You know, if you write a book and title it "Triggered"

maybe you shouldn't be running away from your own book buyers questions.

I only hope SNL does a skit on it.

[Haggis for Breakfast]

12. Yes, let's hope SNL jumps on this one.