I'm rather surprised it didn't occur to anyone involved - either Dawson himself or the bookseller - that the optics of something like this aren't good.
Still, as a (casual) K-pop fan I'm curious about something. In K-pop fandoms (which are, as you may know, very committed) it's not at all uncommon for fans to engage in bulk-buying and chart manipulation. People in different countries gather money and send it to a party that bulk-buys the album at a particular time, in a particular place, in order to boost the album's ranking on a particular chart. The sums they gather are at times huge, and often in effect donations; many of the donors don't even want a physical copy of the album, or else they already own one (or several). They're still real people, though. Real buyers, real fans. But the bulk-buying is 100% strategic rather than organic.
I doubt many book fandoms would be that committed, but still. Would something like this disqualify an author's ranking if the author themselves weren't buying the book in bulk?
If not, I don't understand why Dawson didn't get someone else to organise something like this for him, but what do I know.
Still, as a (casual) K-pop fan I'm curious about something. In K-pop fandoms (which are, as you may know, very committed) it's not at all uncommon for fans to engage in bulk-buying and chart manipulation. People in different countries gather money and send it to a party that bulk-buys the album at a particular time, in a particular place, in order to boost the album's ranking on a particular chart. The sums they gather are at times huge, and often in effect donations; many of the donors don't even want a physical copy of the album, or else they already own one (or several). They're still real people, though. Real buyers, real fans. But the bulk-buying is 100% strategic rather than organic.
I doubt many book fandoms would be that committed, but still. Would something like this disqualify an author's ranking if the author themselves weren't buying the book in bulk?
If not, I don't understand why Dawson didn't get someone else to organise something like this for him, but what do I know.