GOP presidential hopeful Ted Cruz recently said that the New York Times declined to put his memoir “A Time for Truth – Reigniting the Promise to America” on its bestseller list because his rivals told the newspaper to do so.
NY Times replied that the removal from the list was due to Cruz’ unfair marketing practices such as selling the book in bulk at certain locations. Eileen Murphy from the NY Times said that the newspaper had an “overwhelming preponderance of evidence” that the sales were inflated by “strategic bulk purchases.”
The book sold nearly 12,000 copies in only a week, which is more than all NY Times bestsellers with only two exceptions. So, Cruz’s office yelled conspiracy when the book was refused access to the list.
“The Times is presumably embarrassed by having their obvious partisan bias called out,”
noted Rick Tyler, Sen. Cruz’s campaign spokesperson.
Ted Cruz even dared the NY Times to release the “so-called evidence” and said that the newspaper’ s allegations about bulk purchases are “blatant falsehood.” Cruz also said that the NY Times was only trying to cover up its “partisan agenda” under false charges.
Cruz’s staff urged the editorial staff to publicly apologize to Sen. Cruz and his editor for the phony charges. The publishing house Harper Collins also stood up for Sen. Cruz.
Harper Collins said in a public statement that it had investigated the matter and found no bulk sales at any retailer or group. The company also said that Cruz’ memoir featured on top of other bestseller lists that also ban books that artificially inflate sales through bulk orders.
Nevertheless, the NY Times hasn’t changed its stance. The newspaper has a special system of detecting fraud before introducing a book on the best seller list. Other books tried to buy their way onto the list, but NY Times weighted the sales data from various book stores across the country, the company noted.
The NY Times also explained that it is hard to believe that there weren’t any bulk purchases in Sen Cruz’ case since a “significant number” of the copies was sold in only a few locations.
NY Times also said that Sen. Cruz’ memoir hadn’t received a different treatment from other books. They said that there are some “uniform standards” related to their famous list including analyzing retail sales beyond the numbers.
And Time for Truth didn’t meet the standards in the first week from its release by looking at patterns of sales, the newspaper argued. Yet the newspaper declined to reveal the methodology used to prevent authors from rigging the system.
Image Source: Washington Times
