In November 2019, Donald Trump Jr.’s book Triggered debuted at the top of the New York Times hardcover nonfiction best-seller list. A week later, the paper’s books desk released a report that a nearly $100,000 bulk purchase of the book by the RNC had contributed to the ranking.
Trump Jr. wasn’t the first in his family to discover the joy of bulk sales—three decades earlier, as the New Republic reported in 2017, his dad encouraged owners of Trump properties to buy thousands of copies of The Art of the Deal, helping it ride the list for 48 weeks. Since then, dozens of nonfiction books each year—including by politicians like Mitt Romney, Herman Cain, and Sarah Palin—have appeared on the list with an assist from bulk buys. Many of those authors used campaign funds to finance the purchases, which the FEC allows as long as the author doesn’t keep the royalties.
In 2020, 17 books on the New York Times hardcover nonfiction best-seller list have scored their spots by dint of bulk buys. All but two have been written by Trumpworld superstars: Trump Jr.; founder of Turning Point USA Charlie Kirk; Glenn Beck; conservative commentator Dave Rubin; Fox News host Pete Hegseth; Dinesh D’Souza; Newt Gingrich; Freedom Center founder David Horowitz; Ben Shapiro; Sean Hannity; Sarah Huckabee Sanders; Candace Owens; Jeanine Pirro; the American Conservative editor Rod Dreher; and Ted Cruz. Of these 15, nine appeared on the list for three weeks or less. (The two outliers aren’t Democratic polemicals; they are the memoirs Live in Love, by Lauren Akins, who is married to country musician Thomas Rhett, and Incomparable, by twin WWE fighters Brie and Nikki Bella.)
“We want the lists to reflect what individual consumers are buying across the country instead of what is being bought in bulk by individuals or associated groups,” reads a New York Times “behind the list” post published this year. “Institutional, special interest, group or bulk purchases, if and when they are included,” reads a different methodology statement, “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 (†).”
The symbol, introduced in 1995, is a signifier of contention in the book world. Some people equate bulk orders with buying one’s way onto the list—an unfair leg-up in more than bragging rights, since a spot on the list can goose more retail orders, which can lead to media appearances and future book deals.
“It establishes an air of legitimacy to these books,” says one publicist who is frustrated by the inclusion of titles that appear with a dagger. “Let’s say Charlie Kirk publishes a book. If it doesn’t hit the New York Times best-seller list, it’s not really going to get that much awareness outside of the right-wing media world.” Rather than getting lost in a news cycle, a book that lands on the best-seller list communicates to a large mainstream audience that, as this person puts it, an “author has hit the big time.”
Even as some conservative dagger-stars of 2020 have crucified the New York Times as fake news, those same authors apparently see the best-seller list as a badge of honor. “So excited about this. I’m officially a New York Times Bestselling author,” Owens tweeted on September 23, followed five days later by “It’s time for our Department of Justice to begin looking into the New York Times.” “Just when you think the New York Times can’t get any dumber,” begins one of Gingrich’s recent tweets, which appeared underneath a header image touting his status as a number one New York Times best-selling author. “Why am I not surprised it was a new york times reporter trashing our first lady?” Pirro tweeted in 2017. But in July the following year: “Waking up to the news that #LiarsLeakersLiberals is a #1 New York Times Bestseller is the best way to wake up.” Even Trump Jr., who frequently disparages the paper, posted a link to a report that his book topped the list; in that post, he does not describe the Times as “failing.”
“Burned up the charts this week,” tweeted Dave Rubin, accompanied, curiously, by a clip of his Don’t Burn This Book going up in flames in an outdoor firepit. Superimposed over the clip is a screenshot of the Times best-seller listing. His book appeared on the list for two weeks.
Rubin’s book encourages readers to “check your facts, not your privilege,” but lays out its own inaccurate arguments, including that “various outlets, from BuzzFeed to The Huffington Post” embraced a “lefty” stance and refused to condemn the gunmen in the 2015 attack on Charlie Hebdo as terrorists (though I cannot find one that did not do just that). The author tells me that he was “relieved” to be on the Times list “because it is a mark as an author at some level,” but he believes that the list, and the use of the dagger symbol, is biased.
“They put that on the conservative ones all the time. So all of these lefty hacks can run around saying, ‘Oh, the conservatives are getting all their bulk book sales,’ and then they don’t put it on the lefty ones. I mean, it’s just all so obvious.” (“This is not true,” writes Jordan Cohen, executive director of communications for the Times, in response. “Daggers can be found with some regularity on our hardcover nonfiction, advice and monthly business best-seller lists, regardless of the political views of authors.…Titles by conservative authors, such as Bill O’Reilly and Martin Dugard, H.R. McMaster and John Bolton, appeared on the hardcover nonfiction list in recent months without daggers.”) Rubin says he is aware of three bulk buys: a 107-book order placed by a fan, a 500-book order by the Conru Foundation for a giveaway, and a 100-book order by an unspecified person. But whose tail is wagging which dog?
The assertion that the Times list is rigged, aided in part by the paper’s cloak-and-dagger accounting, is echoed by other Times detractors who’ve made the list. “I come out of the old school where the New York Times best-seller list was the marquee label,” says D’Souza. “Over time, I’ve come to understand the subjectivity of the list and that it’s a list that is culled from the Times’s kind of own metrics. But I think the problem is that, as of a few years ago, I began to realize that the list appears to be rigged.” Twelve of D’Souza’s books have made the list.
“If I sold 12,000 on BookScan and another book sold 4,000 and they’re ahead of me in the New York Times list, I’m very suspicious that the Times wanted to elevate that author. And then I’ll notice that that book is about fighting racism or it’s obviously politically on the other side, and that increases my suspicion that the Times is playing favorites.” (The differences between various lists and sales figures is an article unto itself, but in short, NPD BookScan only purports to collect data for 85% of books sold—a number also in dispute—and doesn’t include all independent bookstores. The Times lists are created by three data analysts who receive sales figures from an unspecified number of stores; although the list is published in the Times Book Review, the analysts operate separately, reporting to the paper’s news operations rather than the Review’s editor, Pamela Paul.) But, says D’Souza, “I had three number one best sellers, so who am I to be deploring the list that has featured me so often.” His bulk sales, he says, may come from events that he speaks at, wherein the organizer of the event will purchase copies to sell. In response to a follow-up asking whether D’Souza requires venues to purchase a certain number of books for his events, he writes, “These groups often ask if I can do a book signing. Typically this is done by a local bookstore coming and selling copies but sometimes the group orders the books through Amazon and then sells them at full retail to raise money for itself.”
Rod Dreher, whose book Live Not by Lies appeared on the list for one week with a dagger, says that though appearing on the list is “a personal milestone,” he isn’t a Times reader and wasn’t aware of their use of the dagger symbol.
The Times’s own murky methodology (“we want the lists to reflect what individual consumers are buying,” etc.) seems to indicate that some bulk orders may not count toward its list. Cohen, the representative for the Times, responded via email, “This is not accurate. Some elements of our Best-Seller List methodology are not public in order to keep people from gaming the list. We realize that can leave room for confusion. If a book is not included it is because it did not meet standards for inclusion.” He declined to specify how many books constitute a bulk sale, and whether the Times is aware of any attempts by groups or individuals to rig the list.
“Why not just exclude bulk buys?” says a person familiar with the creation of the lists. “If you’re trying to get a read on the mood of the reading public and what they’re attracted to, and what’s hot, you’re not doing that by plugging up your nonfiction list with all of these asterisks.”
“This might really just be more a testament to how the conservative groups are just so good at playing these systems,” says this person. “Just like with the Supreme Court and all of our laws, they’ve managed to work the system so that this minority gets an outsized voice.”
There is a way to sidestep the Times’s opaque standards and still avoid the dagger symbol. A number of so-called marketing firms offer what amounts to sales laundering. The best-known outfit, ResultSource, was the subject of a Wall Street Journal exposé in 2013 and several follow-ups, after an evangelical megachurch paid the company $210,000 to coordinate a purchase scheme designed to game the lists. (ResultSource has since scrubbed its website, which now consists of a simple inquiry form.) Bestsellerlisters.com offers a “product launch giveaway” package in which the firm organizes a promotion among Amazon buyers: After purchasing the book at full price, the buyer receives a rebate, paid for out of the fee charged to the client.
With some best sellers, it hasn’t been difficult to follow the money. Campaign finance filings throughout 2020 detail large book orders by the Republican National Committee and other Republican PACs placed at a variety of booksellers, from Barnes & Noble to bulkbookstore.com. On June 17, the RNC placed a $46,500 order with Books-a-Million. Six days later, Center Street released Gingrich’s Trump and the American Future—which at least one GOP fundraising campaign on WinRed used as a prize for campaign donations, as well as for tickets to events with the Richard Nixon Foundation and the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute. By July 12, Gingrich was on the best-seller list, with a dagger.
A spokesperson for the Republican National Committee says that the bulk purchases aren’t made to assist authors with sales. “We have netted a significant amount off of these promotions,” RNC Communications Director Michael Ahrens emails, “and have more resources, not less, because we have incorporated new books into our record-breaking fundraising efforts.”
Salon has reported that in August the RNC spent $405,404 on “donor mementos” from Barnes & Noble, booksamillion.com, and Porchlight Book Company. The purchases coincided with the Trump campaign’s promise of signed copies of Hannity’s book Live Free or Die in exchange for donations of $75 or more. Porchlight confirmed to Salon a $119,250 bulk purchase of Hannity’s book, which the RNC reported on August 19. In September, RNC fundraising emails flogged signed copies of Sarah Huckabee Sanders’s book—“because you’re a TOP supporter”—for donations of $75. The book made its daggered debut on the best-seller list the week of September 27.
A representative from Barnes & Noble declined to share both information about particular bulk sales and whether the retailer reports bulk sales data to the Times. Representatives from Books-a-Million didn’t respond to further requests for comment.
This month, Cruz’s book One Vote Away debuted at number nine on the list, with a dagger. On his campaign website, he is offering autographed copies of the book in exchange for “a special contribution of at least $77.” An email from the RNC to supporters (per @TrumpEmail) includes links to donate $75 or more in exchange for a signed copy. “By buying my book,” reads a message from Cruz, “your support will go to directly help President Trump defeat Joe Biden and the radical left that wants to destroy the foundation our country was built on.”
Cruz, Owens, Gingrich, Trump Jr., Kirk, Beck, Hegseth, Horowitz, Shapiro, Pirro, Hannity, and Sanders did not respond to or declined requests for comment.
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