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The murky math of the New York Times bestsellers list
The Hustle: “Sy Montgomery spends money on three things: gas, groceries, and making the New York Times bestsellers list. For years, she and her husband have lived as freelance writers deep in the mountains of New Hampshire.
They’ve eked out a living, she says, because they’re so frugal that even at 65 years old she wears hand-me-down clothes from friends. “We can live off the smell of an oily rag,” she says. When Montgomery learned that her publisher wasn’t going to give her third book, The Soul of an Octopus, the national book tour that her first book, an international bestseller, had received, she took matters into her own hands.
She hired a PR pro and self-funded a tour in 2015, charming audiences in bookshops across the country with tales of how animals can expand our consciousness. “I’m just lucky my husband let me gamble with our savings that way.” Her bet worked — The Soul of an Octopus hit the New York Times bestseller list the month of its release. Montgomery had learned an important lesson. Bestsellers don’t just happen; they’re made, by a murky engine of influence that includes the very list itself…”