Right-wing authors’ claims of anti-conservative bias in the New York Times best seller list may not be entirely unfounded, according to a report. A study by The Economist found that books from conservative publishers were on average 7 percent less likely to be included on the list than titles with similar levels of sales from other publishers—though the disparity doesn’t generally affect the top conservative best sellers. The report also concluded that conservative books which do become New York Times best sellers on average rank 2.3 places lower on the non-fiction list than those with commensurate sales from other publishers. The Times did not dispute or confirm the Economist study, and said the “political views of authors or their publishers have absolutely no bearing on our rankings and are not a factor in how books are ranked on the lists.” It also said it’s “normal” to see differences between organizations’ best seller lists as each uses “different methodologies.”
