Bernie Sander's campaign bought his own books to inflate sales.

[torius]

28. I'm an author and also worked on a bestseller list. You don't get royalties from your own purchases.

When you buy books from a publisher, they are in bulk, in a box. You get a discount. No books bought in a bulk (box) by anyone get you royalties. You then can resell them. That's what authors do--they go to book signings, events and such and sell their books. Even if traditionally published. You can keep the profit or use it for fundraising. There's nothing wrong with buying and reselling your own books--it's the norm and the book contract goes over it. You only get a small amount of free copies, to give your friends and family. You pay for the rest.

They go into your sales but a bestseller list would ignore them or put an asterisk as the NYT Times did. I worked for years on a bestseller list for a large publication. They calculated it by averaging sales across a select list of independent bookstores. If a book sold more than a handful it was assumed to be an event such as a book signing and ignored. A book could be a bestseller averaging just a few copies a week. The NYT seems to go more by overall sales, but gives an asterisk when they don't think they are the kind of sales that indicate people are buying it without being pushed. Buying your own book won't get you on a lot of bestseller lists--I can't say what publications use what type--but either way, they don't want to help authors game the system since that's what a lot authors want to do. Hence, Amazon takes down reviews if they think your friends wrote them. The Times puts an asterisk. And my publication ignored any weekly sales per store that was over a few copies. It's to keep it free of manipulation.