“Ve have our vays”

In my research for an article about self- and subsidy-publishing, I came across the name of iUniverse’s #5 best-seller, which I won’t name here. So I bopped on over to Amazon to see what its ranking is, and wouldn't you know, it doesn’t have a ranking. A quick email to Amazon confirmed that no ranking means they haven’t sold at least one copy. So I called iUniverse’s marketing department to inquire about it. The author lives in Florida and apparently has pretty decent sales on Amazon UK, but none at all in the US. The guy I spoke to at iUniverse had been curious too, and called the author to learn his secret, but apparently the author refused to reveal his methods. He has his vays...

The iUniverse guy did mention that for some of their best-selling non-fiction, an institution might purchase a substantial number of copies and distribute them to members, thus creating the high sales numbers.