The company All Seasons Press published the book ‘Tucker‘, written by Chadwick Moore. They will officially talk to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) because the book’s sales rankings seem to have gone down because of Amazon and Bookscan, a data company.
News sources like The Guardian, Mediaite, and the pop-culture site Uproxx quickly spread the wrong story. They said the biography didn’t sell as well as people thought. But the company that published the biography said the numbers were not complete. They blamed Amazon for doing things that are not right when it comes to selling, like:
- They listed the book as “no more copies left” but didn’t tell Bookscan about those “sales”.
- They sent emails to people who ordered early, asking if they still wanted the book. But they made them go to a computer instead of a phone app or website to confirm. If they didn’t, the order would be cancelled.
- They gave the books to people who ordered after the launch before giving them to the early pre-orders.
All Seasons Press also says they did a survey and found out that 40 percent of the people who ordered the book on Amazon didn’t get it even ten days after it came out. The company asks, “It begs the question: is Amazon intentionally trying to sabotage Tucker’s sales and bestseller status?”
BookScan only said 3,227 copies were sold in the first week, and the book was 40th on the list of bestsellers. This probably happened because Amazon didn’t tell BookScan about the sales in the first week. If they did, the book would have been in the top 5 to 7 on the bestsellers list.
When ‘Tucker’ started selling, All Seasons Press said they sent more than 50,000 copies to stores, with 7,523 of those going to Amazon. When Amazon started selling the book, it got really high on the list of all books, even reaching #14, and it was #1 in many smaller categories. On the day ‘Tucker’ came out, the 7,523 copies at Amazon seemed to sell out in minutes. They quickly changed the Amazon page to say the book wasn’t available.
All Seasons Press says they’ve hired lawyers and want to look into how BookScan decides its rankings. They also said if they find anything wrong, they’ll tell the Federal Trade Commission.
According to a copy of a letter obtained by Axios, Fox News has notified Tucker Carlson of a ‘breach of contract’ for a Twitter episode.