Check no.9 on the top ten lists

Control over the bestsellers list gives one the power of the self-fulfilling prophecy.

A high-placed authority at one of the continent’s biggest wholesalers of books told The Republic (off the record), that the best-seller racks as seen in stores are a complete sham. In fact, he said, he was able to help a friend who had published an unremarkable book by slotting it in the top-ten list, thereby drawing attention to it as a bestseller, which it eventually became as a result. We both laughed at the power of the self-fulfilling prophecy that is a perk with a position at the top of a company like that.
But, he explained, by way of sharing the real inside poop, one doesn’t put a fake in the number one position on such a list, that would raise too many eyebrows; and nor is number 10 the best spot because that’s where the suspicious types would look for a plant. No, he said, the number 9 spot was the least conspicuous—that’s where you put the dog you want to push.
Taking that advice as true insider knowledge, I began to pay attention to all number 9 spots on all book bestseller lists, hunting for the dogs. Sure enough: Number 9 in the National Post hardcover non-fiction list for February 4 is Marley and Me, by John Grogan, an unlikely spot on a list of Canadian best-sellers for a book by a somewhat popular Philadelphia newspaper columnist writing about his Labrador retriever.
And in the number 9 spot for paperback non-fiction? Animals in Translation, by Temple Grandin, a book about how to talk to the animals—including your dog, I can only presume.
The Globe and Mail top-ten non-fiction list shares every title that is on the National Post list, except for the two animal books (that is, the two number 9 best sellers), and has one title that doesn’t appear on the National Post list, at, you guessed it, the number 9 spot: For Laci, by Sharon Rocha, the mother of Laci Peterson, the pregnant victim of Scott Peterson, and the most celebrated murder trial in America since O J—but an unlikely top-seller for Canadian audiences.