And all of a sudden the word started getting out and it did get on the Times list. Harvard Bookstore is just one of hundreds of independent outlets nationwide that report their sales figures each week to The New York Times. It's a mutually beneficial arrangement. The independents get attention from publishers and The New York Times gets raw data for its bestseller list. But that symbiotic relationship is now at risk.
Independent booksellers are furious.
Hut Landon, director of the Northern California Independent Booksellers Association, is leading an effort to get independent bookstores to stop reporting their sales to The New York Times. Landon says it no longer makes financial sense for the small stores to give away their sales data. We don't want those books to end up on the bestseller list because we report them, and then have those books be discounted by the chain stores, thereby costing us sales in our stores. Because once the books get discounted and get on the bestseller list, the independent stores lose a majority of those sales. Independent bookstores already feel under siege from chain superstores.