Scheana Shay addressed the suggestion that she bought her way onto The New York Times bestseller list.
“For my book tour, I worked with a company called Premiere to manage book sales at each event. This is something that is really common in publishing. It’s how you make sure those copies coming to a signing or a live show that they will absolutely get a copy of the book,” Shay, 40, explained to her guest host and manager Mark Modesitt on her “Scheananigans” podcast on Tuesday, August 12. “But this whole thing with the dagger next to my name.”
The New York Times uses a dagger symbol on their bestseller lists to indicate that the book’s sales figures include a significant number of bulk purchases. Shay said on Tuesday that she wasn’t involved in most of the book purchases for her live events.
“But for the touring dates — those events all were through premiere,” she continued. “When someone bought a ticket to the tour — if they did it by a certain date — they had to order the right amount of copies of the books for each venue. So they had to order the right amount of books for each venue. With the ticket to one of my live shows, it included one copy of the book.”
After noticing speculation online, Shay dug deeper into the discourse, saying, “I guess Premiere reports each of those purchases individually to The New York Times and other tracking outlets. But there wasn’t an additional surplus of books bought. Every single one of those sales was a real book in a real reader’s hands. I guess The New York Times uses the dagger symbol when a large percentage of books — like the total first week sales — come from one outlet. And there’s the pre-orders, the Amazons, all of that.”
Shay stood by the fact that “those sales are completely legitimate.”
“This can happen,” she added. “Because so many of my fans came out to the tour and got their books from Premiere instead of a mix of other retailers. I guess the New York Times flagged it. But here’s the thing, Would I rather be on The New York Times bestsellers list with a dagger or not be on it at all?”
Shay went on to say that having a dagger by your book name “isn’t even a bad thing,” adding, “Which I now know since I’ve gotten into the lore of the dagger and down the Reddit rabbit holes and all of that. It’s just an indicator of sales concentration. You cannot buy your way onto the list. The New York Times has a full vetting process. They don’t count suspicious bulk orders. If you’re buying 500 personal books, I’m sure that’s going to get flagged that it’s not an individual sale. My spot on the list came from actual readers showing up, supporting me, wanting to be a part of this journey and also making the Canada bestsellers list — where there were no tour dates.”
The reality star also pointed out that “there was no dagger” when it came to The New York Times list for audiobooks.
“It’s bulls*** because that’s the thing where it’s all the women out there trying to discredit a woman who put herself out there, told her story, was so open and so vulnerable. It became a bestseller and they’re still trying to knock me down,” Shay continued. “I’m like, ‘Maybe people actually just give a f*** and want to read my story. Maybe they relate to my story. Maybe they enjoyed listening to it.’”
My Good Side, which included revelations about Brock Davies, Lisa Vanderpump and more, is out now.
