I looked up the stats on a canceled author and the numbers were not what I thought

I was curious about an author who got dropped by their publisher last year, so I checked their Amazon sales rank. It had actually gone up by over 15,000 spots in the month after the news broke. I found this on a site that tracks book data. It makes you wonder who the 'canceling' really hurts sometimes. Has anyone else seen a case where the backlash seemed to help more than hurt?

3 comments

3 Comments

terry_wood511mo ago

Yeah it's like the whole 'go woke go broke' thing never really pans out in real life. I see it all the time where getting called out just gives people a bigger platform. It's free advertising from all the outrage, and their fans just rally harder. Makes the whole cancel culture thing feel pretty pointless most of the time lol.

jordang321mo ago

Huh, that's interesting. But I think you're mixing up two different things. The "go woke go broke" idea is usually about big companies making choices that hurt sales. An author's sales rank going up after getting dropped is more about a specific fanbase getting mad and buying the book to show support. It doesn't really prove anything about the wider "woke" argument, it just shows that getting attention can sometimes backfire for the people trying to do the canceling.

torres.sage1mo ago

It's like that with everything now, the outrage just feeds the thing it's trying to kill. I see it happen with local restaurants and small brands all the time.