Using BookScan As a Weapon
Posted on June 5, 2006
Slate has a feature which points out the evil uses of Bookscan. Apparently Bookscan numbers are being wielded like swords by vicious publicists, authors and publishers who wish to humilate another another by pointing out their enemies' poor book sales numbers.
Slate says BookScan data is compiled from the big bookselling chains, Amazon as well as stores like Costco. Wal-Mart sales figures are not yet part of BookScan. Slate says this data is being used to "humiliate, minimize accomplishments, and express joy at the misfortune of other writers."
Edward Wyatt of the New York Times has been a connoisseur of disappointing BookScan figures. Last December, he gleefully noted that Martha Stewart's The Martha Rules, which had garnered a $2 million advance, sold a not-very-good 37,000 copies, and he cited even smaller figures for Salman Rushdie's Shalimar the Clown ("just 26,000 copies") and Myla Goldberg's Wickett's Remedy ("only 9,000"). In November 2004, he cited BookScan figures to show that the finalists for the fiction category of the National Book Award were a bunch of poorly selling obscurities.Schadenfraude in the writing world? Perish the thought! We're all just one happy family, feeling overwhelming joy when a rival author's book sales exceed ours. Ahem.BookScan data also become cudgels wielded in political and ideological debates. Last week, Andrew Sullivan joyfully posted on the market failure of Mary Cheney's memoir: "She got a reported $1 million advance. She has had a blitzkrieg of publicity. And according to BookScan's data yesterday, she sold a total of 1,633 books last week. Her year-to-date sales are 4,091." Take that!
