Some publishers build buzz for titles, but numbers aren't exactly binding

Everyone enjoys having friends recommend a good book, but what happens when friends suggest books that are average at best?

This is just the case with Beijing's best-selling book lists, Yao Danqian, vice-president of marketing at dangdang.com, one of China's leading online bookstores, told METRO.

Best-seller lists, based on book sales, are often manipulated by companies looking to inflate sales of a particular book, whether those sales are warranted or not, said Yao.

The most common form of best-seller list manipulation, he says, occurs when publishers buy mass quantities of their own titles to boost sales numbers and then resell them on the market after the book has ostensibly become popular.

Yao says that manipulation of rankings is common, but noted his company has created a system that ensures that it does not happen.

To counteract list manipulation, Yao said that purchases of more than three books through the company's web store are marked as only two purchases, making it difficult for publishers to boost sales numbers in that manner.

"If someone wanted to manipulate our list, it would take him or her a very long time to do so," he said.

Making a point not to accuse any particular ranking company of being lax, he said that best-seller lists without such checks in place can be so easily manipulated that they are of little to value to publishers or readers.

Yao added that compiling the best-seller list really isn't his company's primary business.

"We don't have the ability or responsibility to give readers any recommendations," Yao said. "We are just book sellers, not intellectuals or experts. We are just businesspeople."

Even some of the most well known best-seller lists keep their ranking methodologies secret, for fear of companies trying to manipulate the list and compromise the lists' integrity.

When asked how the New York Times compiles its best-seller list, Brian Kennedy, whose job it is to assemble the list, declined to give details, citing fear of manipulation as the reason.

But not all mass purchases are done to intentionally manipulate a best-seller list, Eric Abrahamsen, a freelance literary translator and publishing consultant based in Beijing, told METRO.

Sometimes books appear on the list simply because a company buys mass quantities of a book for its employees, regardless of whether or not they actually read it, Abrahamsen said.

He says many of Beijing's best-seller lists are based on information that doesn't necessarily paint a clear picture of which books are selling well based on perceived quality.

"A lot of people in the publishing industry have indicated to me that the book lists are just fantasy," he said.

"There's no real reliable source for numbers and therefore no real starting point for the lists, so it doesn't really matter," Abrahamsen said.

Many Chinese consumers say they do pay attention to the best-seller lists, but note that they don't necessarily factor the rankings when they choose which book to pluck off the store shelf or buy online.

Wang Yu, a manager assistant for China Southern Airlines, says while he pays attention to the lists at dangdang.com and at the bookstores in town, they have very little influence on what he actually buys.

"I won't buy the book just because it is on the list, but I take each book on the list into consideration," he said.

He says he would pay more attention to the best-selling lists if they were more genre-specific. In the end, he just wants to read a good book.

And publishers know that.

Jo Lusby, managing director of Penguin Publishing in Beijing, said that placement on any best-seller list can boost sales of a title, publishers have little motivation to want lists with fudged numbers.

"Of course we want to be on the best-seller lists," she said. "But you don't publish a book solely with the goal of getting on the best-seller lists."

Instead, most publishers focus on producing great books - the ultimate way of hitting the target that really matters: readers' hearts.