I’m not going to lie; as well as the rest of my writer’s club in high school, I dreamed of getting the coveted New York Times bestseller status. We all dreamed about selling our books across bookstores and libraries, including Barnes and Nobles. In fact, I’ve skipped lunch almost every day to write my stories, despite the fact my friends were screaming at me to eat. Fortunately, one book did manage to get #1 in an Amazon subcategory. It didn’t count for much (as I’ve explained in a different article), but it was something. And even now, when I’m reviewing books, I want to give these authors credit where it’s due. I want to point out things that could make the story better, want to help contribute to that author’s success. It’s a goal I have.

So imagine our surprise, when we find out someone went ahead and bought the title, right under our noses.

On August 17th, 2017, a book called Handbook for Mortals reached New York Times Bestseller for Young Adult Literature, just a mere week after it was published. It passed The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas, and for a few hours, the author received praise. However, after those hours were up, many readers from the young adult community began investigating. After all, no one’s ever heard of this book. No one’s even seen it in bookstores. But as the moments continued, many realized that the author bought thousands of copies herself, and perpetuated the myth that she somehow managed to make it to the bestseller list. And so, the same day Handbook for Mortals was released, it was denounced and removed from the list.

After the scandal, many readers, writers, and artists got involved. As of now, the book has a grand 1.3 ratings on Goodreads from approximately 600 ratings, a lot of which are from readers who agree it’s a bad book. The protagonist isn’t a teen, the prose is horrible, and there was even another scandal where the cover bore way too many similarities to another cover by the artist Gill Del Mace. What’s more, one of the actresses from Buffy the Vampire Slayer formed the publishing company that produced this book. They had the gall to say that teens and young adults don’t care about the prose, as long as the story is good. Which, to be honest, is more than a little demeaning.

To this day, the author still hasn’t apologized or even acknowledged the book is terrible. But what’s even more shocking is the fact that people now realize just how easy it is for someone to buy the New York Times bestselling list. There are little to no safeguards in how the literary community judges who gets on the list and who doesn’t. There are excellent works out there that don’t get recognition. A lot of readers, me included, know this, and so, if there’s a work that seems more than a little suspicious, there will be consequences.

Remember, this is writing. We all slave over our works, whether it be books or poetry or a simple article. Submitting a work to an agent is hard enough, but when you’re the one publishing it? Even more so. So it really does hurt when someone just buys their way on the New York Times bestseller list. It hurts deeply.

But hey, at least we’ve found an easy way out.