Author Mark Dawson was criticized by other authors after buying a large number of copies of his own book to climb the Sunday Times list, writes The Guardian.
Dawson made no secret of buying his own books, but spoke openly about it in his podcast. After the book surveying company Nielsen Bookscan received news of the increase, the company announced that Dawson's new placement on the top ten list did not "meet its criteria". The company will now correct the top list and the Sunday times will follow.
Dawson himself wrote on Twitter that he did not try to "cheat the system", because in that case he would have bought more copies and refrained from talking about the purchase in a podcast.