BookScan thy enemies
Daniel Gross has a piece on Slate on the practice of “Bookscanning” – that is, looking up a particular book’s BookScan numbers for less-than-lofty purposes. Gross notes a number of instances where the numbers have been used to club one’s cultural or political enemies, but claims that the practice is perfectly understandable (he’s done it himself), especially given the realities of publishing and human nature.
“In general,” Gross writes, “the publishing world treats money the way old-line WASPs once did – as a subject that genteel people simply don’t discuss. The only question considered to be more indelicate than how much one was paid to write a book is how many copies it has sold.”
(Perhaps this is a good time to mention that there are no plans to make BookNet’s Canadian sales data publicly available.)
“In addition,” Gross continues, “many magazine and newspaper journalists – the type of people who most frequently deploy BookScan data – are either frustrated book authors, failed book authors, or moderately successful ones. It makes us feel better about ourselves when we see recipients of undeservedly large advances do poorly.”
Yes. Yes, it does.
Related links:
Read about BookScanning
