Infamous America - SUMMER OF 1876 BOOK | Book Tour, Bestseller “Horror” Story

Episode Date: May 3, 2023

In this episode about Chris Wimmer’s book, “The Summer of 1876,” he reveals plans for a (mini) book tour and tells a story about the secrets behind The New York Times Bestseller List. (Mini) Book Tour: June 7, 2023 – Deadwood, South Dakota – The Adams Museum June 15, 2023 – Durango, Colorado – Maria’s Bookshop Pre-order until May 29, 2023: The Summer of 1876 Esquire Magazine: The Murky Path to Becoming a New York Times Bestseller Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey everyone, this is the update I've been teasing for a few months. For new listeners who might not know, I wrote a book called The Summer of 1876, Outlaws, Lawmen, and Legends in the season that defined the American West. It weaves together several overlapping stories that all happened in the summer of 76, the Battle of the Little Big Horn, the rise of Deadwood and the murder of Wild Bill Hickok, the beginning of the partnership of Wyatt Earp and Batmasterson, Dodge City, the disastrous Northfield raid by the James Younger gang, and some highlights of the

first season of baseball for the National League. The book will be published May 30, 2023, and I've promised in previous updates to tell you a story that was told to me about the significance of pre-ordering a book and how it relates to the New York Times bestseller list. So we're going to do story time here in a second, which involves a famous and infamous book, a legendary Hollywood movie, and a lawsuit against the New York Times. I think you'll like it, but before I launch into the story, here are some announcements. I'm doing a book tour. It's only two cities, so I don't know if that qualifies as a tour, but either way it's going to be fun. On Wednesday, June 7th, my sister and I will be in Deadwood, South Dakota for a launch party. We're doing a presentation

at the Adams Museum, then I'm signing some books, and then we're hosting an after-party at our favorite bar, the saloon number 10. If you're in the area or want to make the trip, that's June 7, 2023, a little over a month from right now as this episode is released. A week after that, we'll do it all over again in Durango, Colorado. On Thursday, June 15th, we'll be at Maria's bookshop in downtown Durango. It's a great little independent bookstore. right in the heart of town. So June 7th, Deadwood, South Dakota. June 15th, Durango, Colorado. If you can be there, we'd love to see you. If you can't be at either, we're doing a virtual event for the Mark Twain Museum on June 22nd. It'll stream live online and we'll have details

about that in the future. Next up, on these podcast feeds next week, you're going to get a preview of the audiobook version of the summer of 1876. I won't talk too much about it now because I'll do a whole episode about it next week, but I'm just letting you know your questions will be answered. All right, that's it for the announcements. Now let's get to the fun part. The horror story, and that's your hint, about the New York Times bestseller list. When I first got the green light from St. Martin's Press to write the book,

St. Martens has been a great publisher, by the way, especially for a first-time author who knows nothing about the publishing industry. I had a ton of conversations about all the different facets of the business. In one of those conversations, a person said to me, pre-orders are really important for trying to get your book on the New York Times bestseller list. They've become a big criteria. And I laughed because I wanted to temper expectations. I'm a first-time author.

This is a book about the Old West. It's probably not going to sell millions of copies around the world. I'm not going to worry about the bestseller list. I'll just be thankful for whatever happens. But still, during that conversation, questions occurred to me that I'd never thought of before. What does it take to get on the bestseller list? How many books would you need to sell? Because I thought, like I assume most people think, the best seller list is a literal list. It's a list of the books that sell the most copies during a given time period.

And the person I was talking to said, that's actually not it. Sales are certainly one factor, but no one really knows what it takes to get on the best. bestseller list. Apparently it's one of the most closely guarded secrets on earth. It's right up there with, is the U.S. government hiding aliens at Area 51? There's like six people who know the answer. And I laughed again and said, how is that possible? It's called a bestseller list. Isn't it self-explanatory? It's a list of the best-selling books. And the person said again, no, it's not just a list of the books that sell the most copies. And here's how we know at least that much. Many years ago, the New York Times was sued by a famous author

because his book did not appear on the list. The case went all the way to the United States Supreme Court, which declined to hear it, but still, that's a hell of a lot of legal back and forth for a case about a book list. Eventually, the New York Times was forced to reveal a little bit of information about the list. But in the reveal, the mystery actually deepened.

So let's go back to 1969, and see how all this happened. A young writer had been working in the entertainment industry writing comedy, but in 1969, the market for the type of material he'd been writing dried up. He needed to do something different, and he'd had an idea for a novel since his junior year in college. The novel was radically different from anything he'd done before. He sat down and plowed through it in about nine months.

The publisher rushed it into print because the Hollywood movie, movie rights were sold before the writer was even finished with the first draft. So, the book gets published in 1971, and according to the author, it fails miserably. But then, just as the author believes the experience is going to end in total disaster, he gets a call from a late-night TV talk show, the Dick Cavett Show. The show has lost a guest, and they need an emergency fill-in. So the author goes on the show and talks about his book to a nationwide audience. By the next week, his book went from a total disaster to number four on Time Magazine's bestseller list.

Shortly after that, it hit number one on the New York Times bestseller list and stayed there for 17 weeks. His book was a smash hit by any standard. Two years later, a young and famous Hollywood director turned it into a movie that is now an all-time classic. It was nominated for 10 Academy Awards, including best picture. It was a landmark film, and it's often cited as the best of its genre. So now, fast forward 12 years to 1983. The author writes a sequel to the original novel, and it sells tons of copies. It's an instant hit, but it does not make it onto the New York Times bestseller list. The author and the publisher can't figure out why. Getting a book onto the bestseller list is a huge

selling point. It's a massive endorsement of the book and can cause sales to surge. But at the same time, if a book is popular and therefore expected to be on the list but isn't, that could potentially hurt sales. So the author and the publisher sue the New York Times to find out why the book isn't on the list. At the time, the newspaper claimed its list was based on actual book sales. So books that sold a certain number of copies should automatically be on the list. The case works its way through the court system and eventually lands on the United States Supreme Court's desk. But the Supreme Court declines to hear it, which means the previous court's ruling will stand. And that ruling supports the New York Times, because the Times was forced to admit and use the defense that the list

was not a simple mathematical compilation of the books that sold the most copies. Some super-secret group of people at the Times choose the books that go on the list based on a set of criteria that only they know. So, because the Times claimed that it was an editorial list and not based on sales, the criteria were protected by the First Amendment, the right to free speech. The Times has the right to publish its list based on any criteria it wants without having to reveal the criteria because it's essentially an opinion list. In their opinion, these are the, quote, best best-selling books. The Times won its lawsuit, but it was forced to reveal that its list was not a literal bestseller list, and because it's not, to this day, no one knows exactly what it

takes to get on the list. Certainly book sales factor into it, but there are obviously other criteria as well. And as it was told to me, pre-order sales now factor into it. The person who told me this story said, if you sell something like 10,000 pre-orders, let's say, then that would be a big step toward getting on the bestseller list. And that was the thing that made me laugh. 10,000, just in pre-orders, sounded like a massive number. But I thought the story was really interesting. And it shows, yet again, that lots of things we take for granted are not what they seem.

It took a court case exactly 40 years ago to reveal part of the secret. But in the process, the overall mystery only deepened. What qualifies as a New York Times bestselling book? No one knows. And as for that author and his book, don't worry, I won't leave you hanging. The author was William Peter Bladdy. And if that name doesn't sound familiar,

the book he published in 1983 that sparked the court case was called Legion. It was the sequel to a little novel called The Exorcist, which was made into the film that is widely regarded as the scariest movie of all time. I hope you enjoyed that story. If you want to pre-order my book, you can do so now. If you want to wait until it's published, that happens on May 30th. If you have absolutely no interest in the book, but you listened until the end of this episode anyway, I thank you for sticking with it, and now you have a fun story to tell your friends. I'll be back next week with a preview of the audiobook version. Thanks again, and I'll see you then.