Planet Money

How to make a BOOK into a bestseller

02 May 2026

Audio

Description

In the world of commercial publishing, there are few crowning achievements more coveted than a place on the New York Times Best Seller List. But how does a book actually end up there? There is, of course, a playbook that publishers and authors use to try to gin up enough sales at the beginning of a new book’s life to launch it onto the list. But there is also a world of more shadowy techniques – a whole history of hacking shenanigans going back nearly a century.Today on the show, the fourth episode in our series: Planet Money sets out to make the Planet Money book a best seller, and along the way, we uncover all the outlandish strategies that people have tried to hack their way onto the New York Times Best Seller List. There will be mass hallucinations, legal exorcisms, shady book launderers, and scarlet daggers. And we learn the hard way how trying to engineer your way onto the list, just might be the thing that keeps you from getting there.Related:- “Night People's Hoax On Day People Makes Hit With Book Folks” - New York Times: “Jacqueline Susann Dead at 53; Novelist Wrote 'Valley of Dolls'”- New York Times: “Blatty Sue Times On Best-Seller List”- New York Times: “Court Bars A Suit Over Books List”- Bloomberg Businessweek: “Did Dirty Tricks Create A Best Seller?” - Episode 1: Inside a BOOK auction- Episode 2: Our BOOK vs. the global supply chain - Episode 3: BOOKstore Economics- Series: Planet Money makes a book- Laura McGrath’s new book: Middlemen: Literary Agents and the Making of American FictionOur book: Planet Money: A Guide to the Economic Forces That Shape Your Life is in stores now. Support: Planet Money+Listen free: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, the NPR app or anywhere you get podcasts.Find us on Socials: Facebook / Instagram / TikTok.Our weekly Newsletter.This episode was produced by Willa Rubin. It was edited by Jess Jiang, fact-checked by Sierra Juarez, and engineered by Robert Rodriguez and Cena Loffredo. Alex Goldmark is our executive producer. Music: NPR Source Audio - "Quirky Episodes," “Dramedy Scheme,” "Unforeseen Consequences,” and “Impractical Jokes.” See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.NPR Privacy Policy

Transcription

This episode hasn't been transcribed yet

Help us prioritize this episode for transcription by upvoting it.

0 upvotes

🗳️ Sign in to Upvote

Popular episodes get transcribed faster

Other episodes from Planet Money

Transcribed and ready to explore now

How we got free agents in baseball

06 May 2026

Planet Money

Spirit Airlines and the future of cheap flights

29 Apr 2026

Planet Money

Live: Anthropic co-founder on AI and jobs

22 Apr 2026

Planet Money

How to get through the Strait of Hormuz

14 Apr 2026

Planet Money

BOOKstore Economics

10 Apr 2026

Planet Money

Dark times for Cuba’s economic experiment

02 Apr 2026

Planet Money

View all episodes from Planet Money

Comments

There are no comments yet.

Please log in to write the first comment.

Report any issue

Planet Money

How to make a BOOK into a bestseller

This episode hasn't been transcribed yet

Other episodes from Planet Money

How we got free agents in baseball

Spirit Airlines and the future of cheap flights

Live: Anthropic co-founder on AI and jobs

How to get through the Strait of Hormuz

BOOKstore Economics

Dark times for Cuba’s economic experiment

Sign in to Audioscrape

Share this moment