I was under the impression that there were a few different types of ways that Amazon sells books, one is for new authors where they agree to pay some percentage to Amazon for distribution, in return they get a certain degree of advertising or something like that. This is not all that different then what places like ITunes or Soundforge does with emerging musicians. The risk is not that great for adding someone in a almost obscure category on the off chance they could take off. You can bet I is not the way that major authors and artists are handled. At the end of the day the name of the game is distribution, if you have it and want to sell it they are happy to accommodate you, what it is does not matter as much as how much they might be able to make off of you, or your foot.
Imagine the satisfaction on the faces of the people who bought this book when they receive it, hilarious. This makes me think about how the Best seller title is a extremely relative thing for everyone, all of us give it different meanings.
I don't know how Amazon calculates those lists, but I know iTunes usually favors more recent releases. I would guess Amazon works in a similar fashion. This fake book must have slipped through the crack somewhere and since it was a new release, it was judged to be something they should put at the top of the list.
A bestseller is a marketing tactic, because it could have been the bestseller for a day. This is why publishers and authors aggressively market for a given time to achieve a ranking they can use for marketing purposes, hence why an e-book maybe reduced for a few days to bulk up sales.
At least thing is once your book gets the best seller status even if it is for one day, you can use that to market the book. It doesn't matter if it was a best seller in some obscure category. I wouldn't mind that and market myself as an Amazon best selling author.
Honestly, I skip over this marketing tags, 'bestselling author' or 'international author' as anyone can call themselves that and it doesn't mean much. A friend's sister has self-published a book and because it's available around the world (e-books are) she calls herself an international author on her facebook page. Most people call themselves a writer or an author, but adding bestselling and international as marketing hypes, what does it prove? That you have an ego maybe?
Well that is interesting, but TV networks do the same thing. In an effort to get people to watch shows they will bill them as the hit new comedy or something like that. It is marketing plain and simple. COmpanies have been doing these sorts of things forever. It is just the way the game is played. I think buyers need to take it all with a grain of salt.
