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How to make a BOOK into a bestseller

Planet Money

Published
May 2, 2026
Duration
46:45
Summary source
description
Last updated
Jun 10, 2026

Discusses In the world of commercial publishing, there are few crowning achievements more coveted than a place…

Summary

In the world of commercial publishing, there are few crowning achievements more coveted than a place on the New York Times Best Seller List. But how does a book actually end up there? There is, of course, a playbook that publishers and authors use to try to gin up enough sales at the beginning of a new book’s life to launch it onto the list. But there is …

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Show notes

In the world of commercial publishing, there are few crowning achievements more coveted than a place on the New York Times Best Seller List. But how does a book actually end up there? There is, of course, a playbook that publishers and authors use to try to gin up enough sales at the beginning of a new book’s life to launch it onto the list. But there is also a world of more shadowy techniques – a whole history of hacking shenanigans going back nearly a century.Today on the show, the fourth epis