IF THIS IS A SURPRISE TO YOU, I WISH TO INFORM YOU THERE’S ALSO NO SANTA OR EASTER BUNNY.     SORRY: Like everything else in Sulzberger’s paper, the NYT bestseller list is fake.

And if this were the only issue you’d still be looking at lists of books that sold a metric ton:

They were forced to admit in court that it’s not a ranked list. It’s actually “editorial content” and they can exclude books they don’t like.

Just not all the books that sold a metric ton. But this isn’t even remotely true. The fact is that books can hit the NY Times list from laydown. That’s the books that the publisher says they ship out. (It’s routinely double what actually ships out.) Without selling a single copy.

It’s turtles all the way down. NYT bestseller lists need to achieve the same “status” the Hugo has attained these last few years. It’s all gaslighting. ALL the way down.