Tonight, Christianity Today’s Ken Walker posted an article on the ethics of buying a spot on best seller lists. The coverage, which is also in the January print edition, links to the ResultSource contract I posted here. Although I am surprised the views of Crossway executive Justin Taylor were not included, this is an important article with reaction from numerous industry sources. Most publishers who commented took a dim view of the methods used by ResultSource.
Some surprises from the article:
Eric Metaxas doesn’t see a problem with using a ResultSource like scheme. I wonder if he used them to help out with the Bonhoeffer book.
David Jeremiah’s book Captured by Grace was once listed on the ResultSource website as a part of the ResultSource portfolio. Back in November, I wrote about the mention of Jeremiah’s right hand man Paul Joiner in a Mars Hill Church memo on Mark Driscoll’s Real Marriage campaign. Repeated contacts with Turning Point Ministry have gone unanswered. I plan some additional work on David Jeremiah’s approach to publishing best seller, possibly as early as tomorrow. It now appears that he has been using ResultSource to move his books up the lists since 2007.
ResultSource may not be doing much business since the secret sauce was revealed.
One thing not surprising is that the authors involved, ResultSource’s CEO Kevin Small, and Jeremiah’s current and Driscoll’s former agent Sealy Yates did not provide information or comment to CT.