Regnery Cuts Ties with NYT Best-Seller List

Audio By Carbonatix

September 5, 2017

Regnery Publishing has cut ties with the New York Times best-seller list over "years of bias" against its conservative top-selling authors. Regnery says the NYT ranks conservative-leaning books lower than other, more liberal-leaning, books.

Regnery's displeasure boiled over after Dinesh D'Souza's last book, "The Big Lie: Exposing the Nazi Roots of the American Left," was ranked 7th on the NYT best-seller list, despite showing as #1 on other rankings.

“I ask you to consider this: We are often told it’s foolish to bite the hand that feeds you,” Marji Ross, president and publisher of Regnery, said in a letter to its authors. “I say it’s just as foolish to feed the hand that bites you.”

The Times has never released its method of measuring book sales, other than to say its list is based on "surveys of thousands of booksellers."  Meanwhile, Nielsen BookScan gives the number of print sales in about 85% of the market.

D'Souza told Salem host Mike Gallagher today that BookScan shows his book - ranked by NYT as 7th - sold 10,000 to 12,000 copies in a recent week, while Senator Jeff Flake's "Conscience of a Conservative" sold 4,000 to 5,000, yet the NYT ranked it 1st.

Regnery's authors will no longer use "NYT Best-Seller" on book covers, nor will Regnery pay them bonuses based on the NYT rankings.  Instead, Regnery will rely on the Publishers' Weekly best-seller listing.

Regnery, in business since 1947, has published top-selling conservative authors such as D'Souza, Ann Coulter, Mark Levin and Laura Ingraham over the past several years, as well as President Donald Trump.   Regnery Publishing is owned by KHTE's parent company, Salem Media.