Alexi Horowitz-Ghazi

This week, almost all of the previous bestsellers managed to maintain their position.

The list can apparently be very sticky.

Though one new book does get added to the shelf.

Fisher says the bestseller list simply reveals the nation's collective preferences over the past week.

But they say they have noticed a pattern to the kinds of books that they'll see on the list in any given week.

There's usually a celebrity memoir, a political tell-all, a self-help sensation.

Okay, both shipwreck stories.

Absolutely, yes.

I guess shipwrecks are like catnip for dads.

For the financially inclined, there's sometimes an economic history book.

Like this week, there's Andrew Ross Sorkin's 1929.

But the thing that unites all these books is that before they could be anointed to the list, before their triumphant moment getting promoted to the bestseller shelf, they had to actually get in front of customers.

And for that, they all had to pass this final test.

They all had to get a green light from book buyers like Fisher at thousands of bookstores big and small around the country.

Hello and welcome to Planet Money, I'm Alexi Horowitz-Ghazi.

Even after you've made it through the gauntlet of the publishing market to land a book deal, after you've spent years perfecting every sentence in every illustration, after you've scoured the earth to find the best place to print the book and spent sleepless nights cranking out tens of thousands of copies, even after all of that, there is still one final group of judges who will determine whether a book makes it onto a shelf near you, the booksellers behind the counter.

Today on the show, the third episode in our series, Planet Money sets out to actually sell a book.

We burrow behind the bookstore shelves to learn the secret codes that publishers use to try to convince booksellers to carry the book, from little mom and pops to airport juggernauts.

There will be corporate intelligence networks, bargain bin shenanigans, and a giant industrial saw chewing up books by the thousands.

Call it Pulp Nonfiction.