Holy Cats! Vicki and I made The New York Times bestseller list!!!

[Eileen Muller]

Happy for you! Congrats!

[Nancy C. Johnson, Author]

Delurking to say congratulations! Enjoy it. No matter what PL says, you didn't sneak in...you were invited in.

LOL, loved that word "delurking" Jamie. Thanks for the congrats.... Yes, no matter how I got there, I'll take it.

Thanks to everyone who posted. I just enjoyed some pasta and a nice evening out at the local Italian restaurant. Feeling good....

Happy Valentine's Day to everyone.

Nancy

[BrianKittrell]

*calls the NY Times*
Operator: NY Times, how may I help you?
Me: HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!
Operator: Sir???
Me: .....HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
Operator: ...
Me: Click.

This is so freaking funny and amazing at the same time. LOL! Congrats!

[Nancy C. Johnson, Author]

*calls the NY Times*
Operator: NY Times, how may I help you?
Me: HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!
Operator: Sir???
Me: .....HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
Operator: ...
Me: Click.

This is so freaking funny and amazing at the same time. LOL! Congrats!

I SO agree with you, Brian! And now you've made me laugh again!! Nancy  

[tonyaplank]

Congratulations, Nancy! You so deserve it! The Times' insistence on excluding self-published authors is deceptive to the public anyway. I'm glad the system kind of righted itself in this way.

[CJArcher]

Good on you, Nancy!  I'm very pleased for you.  I can't stop laughing though.

[modwitch]

Yup, too d*mn funny.  Good for you!

[BrianKittrell]

I SO agree with you, Brian! And now you've made me laugh again!! Nancy  

hehehe Now, we wait to see what they do. The two obvious possiblities:

1) Pull it from the list and ignore it like it never happened.

or

2) Leave it there and ignore it to keep any additional publicity from developing.

I always find it hillarious how New York, in almost every way or institution, is trying to keep indies from making something of themselves. It's so very anti-American. "There's no room for you on our list, little man." Hahahaha!

[Nancy C. Johnson, Author]

It's their list, they can do what they want, I guess.  

Hey, if my lovely coach turns into a pumpkin, and the prince tosses my glass slipper, I still got to go to the ball!!!!!

Nancy  

[Julie Christensen]

Nancy!!!!  I couldn't have happened to a nicer person or better book!  I'm so happy for you!  That is fantastic news!  You are leading the pack and breaking new ground.  Bravo!!!!!

[John Hamilton]

Amazing, Nancy.  Good for you! 

[TiffanyTurner]

Nancy,
Wow! Just wow! It's so great to see what Indie break outs are happening on the board. That's the thing I love about this board. Not only can you share that you are a NY Bestseller, we can live it with you on the board. This made my day too. Glad to see an Indie making it even when the traditional publishing industry is trying their best to try to block accomplishments. You're inspiring me to soldier on and scream from the hilltops, I'm an Indie author, so there.

So, do you think you'll climb up the Bestseller List from the publicity? I'm dying to see if you go up the list now. 

[Nancy C. Johnson, Author]

No idea, Tiffany.... But if this is as good as it gets, I'm not complaining.

Nancy  

Thanks again you guys for all the good wishes.  

Night all.... Zzzzzzz

[Jamie Case]

hehehe Now, we wait to see what they do. The two obvious possiblities:

1) Pull it from the list and ignore it like it never happened.

or

2) Leave it there and ignore it to keep any additional publicity from developing.

I always find it hillarious how New York, in almost every way or institution, is trying to keep indies from making something of themselves. It's so very anti-American. "There's no room for you on our list, little man." Hahahaha!

3) Change the policy [must be published by a third party publisher]

Or they may not change it at all because starting your own publishing company is not a trivial thing.

I don't think the New York Times is going out of their way to keep indies out. They are just trying to protect their brand. Until indie books are mainstream what is their motivation for adding them?

Secondly, as indie authors have found out, if you keep a book price low you can attract a lot of value shoppers who are first and foremost attracted by your price rather than your content. That means that indie authors can outsell mainstream authors on volume alone. This spells static to the New York Times. Amazon wouldn't mind if the same books sat on the Kindle bestseller lists for the next 10 years. After all they get money from each sale. But if that happened to the NYTimes, the list would lose its value and people would stop consulting it and stop buying the paper to read the book review or listening to their NYTimes Bestseller podcast(which is where they make their money).

I don't think they do it to go after the little guy. When J.K. Rowling sat on top of the list too long and they realized that she could potentially have seven books sitting in their top ten endlessly, they created the children's list (children's fiction had never outsold adult fiction for that long before). When she dominated the children's list, they created the the series sub-list. They did that to the biggest-selling living author, so I don't think it's about going after the little guy. And she didn't accuse the Times of being anti-Brit.

They also exclude textbooks and books on the required reading lists of public schools, which would dominate the lists if they didn't, and pushed advice and how-to their own list when they started to dominate. If the Times didn't jigger with the list, this is what the list would look like from now until eternity:

Intro to Psych by Charles A. Academic
Calc 1 by Charles A. Academic
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Get your man back now girlfriend by Molly Matchmaker
Lose 10 1bs in  10 minutes by Sally Skeleton
William Shakespeare's Complete Collection by Academic Press
Sparkly Vampires 1 by Peg Paranormal
Sparkly Vampires 2 by Peg Paranormal
Sparky Vampires 3 by Peg Paranormal
Celebrity X's Tell-all by Person who is not Celebrity  

*Then again, I'm a New Yorker and the Times is my hometown paper so I'm biased...

[Nancy C. Johnson, Author]

Those are some very good points, Jamie.

I didn't know that about J.K. Rowling either.

Nancy

[lstrange]

Congratulations!!

Whether you are self-pubbed or with a small press, this is a fantastic step forward. They are many amazing authors on the market today that deserve more widespread recognition.

Best of luck for the future.

[Karen Wojcik Berner]

Nancy, that is awesome! I just read the item on Publisher's Marketplace, then saw this thread here.

Whoohoo!

Congratulations,
Karen

[BrianKittrell]

Of course, but the fact that NY Times says they do not allow indies on their list does say something against the little guy, everything else aside.

Anyhow, I think that it's great you made it there. lol

[bellaandre]

Huge congrats, Nancy! I'm telling everyone I know about you and your book that did the "impossible". Nice work!!

Bella

[Nancy C. Johnson, Author]

Thanks so much, Istrange, Karen, and Brian!  

And Bella too! Yes, it does appear that the impossible was made possible.

Still seems like a dream....

Nancy

[Jamie Case]

Of course, but the fact that NY Times says they do not allow indies on their list does say something against the little guy, everything else aside.

Anyhow, I think that it's great you made it there. lol

No. All it says is that they don't want their list to be static. Insisting otherwise, unless you personally know Sam Tannenhaus and he told you different (and if you do tell him hi, I'm a big fan) makes you sound insecure. Actually it makes you sound entitled and insecure, which is illegal unless you live in Brooklyn.

They don't want their list to be dominated by any one class of book.
Because of its pricing, indie fiction would dominate their list if they counted it. Ergo, they don't allow indies.
Because of their perennial nature, religious texts would dominate etc. Ergo they don't allow religious texts.
Because of their popularity, comics would dominate etc. ergo they don't allow comics.*

The Times shows no love to Jesus, Allah, Jehovah, Buddha, Batman or Superman. Indie authors are in good company.


Rather than sniping at the Times, I think it would be more useful to band together to advocate for an indie sub-list that would pit like against like, as the other sub-lists do. *This is what the graphic novelists did and in 2009 they got their own list. Because, everything else aside, all the congratulations in this thread and Nancy's excitement prove that authors do still want to get on the Time's list.

[Ray Rhamey, author]

Applause, applause! Clearly you had a book worth reading, though--there are plenty of "indie" people who formed their own publishing company to publish their works--me included (FtQ Press). Cheers!

[seakiev]

Congrats Nancy, that is a wonderful accomplishment and very inspirational!

[karencantwell]

MORE Happy dancing for you, Nancy!!!!   This is so utterly cool I think I'll dance too!   

May the good news just keep comin'!

Karen

[BrianKittrell]

No. All it says is that they don't want their list to be static. Insisting otherwise, unless you personally know Sam Tannenhaus and he told you different (and if you do tell him hi, I'm a big fan) makes you sound insecure. Actually it makes you sound entitled and insecure, which is illegal unless you live in Brooklyn.

hahahaha!!! This made me laugh out loud, and I nearly woke the baby up in the next room. You must warn me!

They don't want their list to be dominated by any one class of book.
Because of its pricing, indie fiction would dominate their list if they counted it. Ergo, they don't allow indies.
Because of their perennial nature, religious texts would dominate etc. Ergo they don't allow religious texts.
Because of their popularity, comics would dominate etc. ergo they don't allow comics.*

The Times shows no love to Jesus, Allah, Jehovah, Buddha, Batman or Superman. Indie authors are in good company.


Rather than sniping at the Times, I think it would be more useful to band together to advocate for an indie sub-list that would pit like against like, as the other sub-lists do. *This is what the graphic novelists did and in 2009 they got their own list. Because, everything else aside, all the congratulations in this thread and Nancy's excitement prove that authors do still want to get on the Time's list.

Speaking of J.K. Rowling being on the list forever more unless taken off, I wonder if they're going to end up doing the same thing to Stieg Larsson. He's been there somewhat foreverish himself, from what I remember, rest in peace.

Sure, it would be cool to be on the list, I won't deny that. I've simply resolved myself not to worry about being on the list since the chances of that are greater than a snowball's chance of survival in hell. If I get on there, it would be more of a freak of nature sort of thing. Like Nancy, it would induce those feel-good feelings and a few laughs, but I would have to remember to carry on. As someone just starting out, I have to put my priorities where they need to be. I don't think Nancy was worried about it, either - she obviously put a lot of work into getting her book selling well, and the Times list was probably more of a side effect than an active attempt.

I'd be willing to help lobby for a sub-list for indies. It could be great fun, and I'd be interested to see the outcome of that. I'm an ENTj personality, though: I'm not allowed to create any kind of organization or group of people, but I'm allowed to help run/lead one that has been established to make it soar.