Tuesday, October 16, 2007

Theft as a Measure of Success

This isn't as new as it sounds, you know, using thefts as a measure of the success of a product:

The Frankfurt Book Fair has an indicator to help publishers gauge public interest in the new offerings presented at the annual exhibition -- the unofficial "most stolen book" index.

Bild am Sonntag and Germany's ZDF television have come up with lists of titles most stolen from 15 leading German publishers' stands set up in the Frankfurt trade fair grounds.

"The most-stolen books are usually the most-sold later on," Claudia Hanssen of the Goldmann Verlag publishing house told Bild am Sonntag newspaper, which published a list of the 10 most stolen German-language books this year.

"They're the popular ones and are most likely to end up on the best-seller lists," Hanssen added.

If they're popular enough that people will steal them then they're likely t be popular enough fo people to buy them.

One useful example of this is that Terry Pratchett has been the most shop-lifted writer in hte UK for a decade and more. He's also one of the biggest selling. QED.

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