Topic: Newsmax
Jim Meyers breathlessly writes in an April 12 Newsmax article:
The “ObamaCare Survival Guide” has reached a new sales milestone — it’s hit the coveted No. 1 spot on The New York Times best-seller list.
The Guide reached the Times’ best-seller list for paperback/advice in early February and remains there today.
The new first-place ranking will appear in the April 21 issue of The New York Times Book Review.
But if you look at the sales chart, you'll notice that there's a dagger symbol at the end of the “ObamaCare Survival Guide” entry. The end of the chart states: "A dagger (†) indicates that some retailers report receiving bulk orders." Bulk sales are a traditional method of boosting sales figures for conservative authors.
And many of those bulk sales appear to be coming from Newsmax itself. The book is Newsmax's latest loss leader, selling it for $4.95 with its usual bonus trial subscriptions to Newsmax magazine and other newsletters that one must opt out of in order to avoid being charged for a full year's subscription.
Meyers also fails to mention the key reason Newsmax is pushing this book so hard: Newsmax published it through its subsidiary Humanix Books.
