Bogus book credentials; Laureates’ AI lament; Google scrapes bottom: Newsletter 15 July 2026

Newsletter 160. Why you shouldn’t be impressed by most of what authors brag about. Plus, Nobel Laureates in Economics gnash their teeth about AI, publishers evade Google, three people to follow, three books to read, and one trip to the mountains of Maine.

Be skeptical of author accolades

Authors send all sorts of signals that their books are valuable, readable, and impressive.

You should be very skeptical, because most of the accolades they’re bragging about reflect either lying, powerful friends, or the ability to waste lots of cash.

Here’s a short list of “impressive” book qualities that you ought to be jaded about.

• Published by a major publisher. A book published by Random House, Simon & Schuster, Harper Collins, or Penguin Portfolio seems more impressive than one whose publisher you’ve never heard of. But all that imprint tells you is that the author wrote an excellent book proposal and won over an acquisitions editor. That doesn’t tell you if the book is any good.
• Prominently displayed in a bookstore. It seems impressive to see the book on a table at the front of Barnes & Noble, or in a stack at the airport bookstore. You might be less impressed if you realized that those are paid placements; either the author or the publisher paid to feature the book in those slots.
• “Bestseller.” Lots of authors use this term. They may think it’s going to impress you that their book landed near the top of an Amazon category for 15 minutes (for example, top ten new releases in digital marketing techniques). A few dozen well-timed purchases will propel a book into one of those slots, earning an orange ribbon. All that tells you is that the author or publisher stimulated a few early sales and manipulated their timing. “Bestseller” may also refer to the Porchlight bestseller list, which reflects bulk sales, not actual readers.
• National bestseller or “New York Times bestseller.” These lists are more exclusive. They reflect sales through a specific (and closely guarded) list of retail bookstores. But they can be manipulated. One publisher sends all his authors’ bulk sales through a retail bookstore in Washington, DC, which can land books on the Washington Post bestseller list. And if you’re willing to spend $50,000 or more, there are “distributed buying programs” that will generate thousands of purchases through a collection of bookstores with the goal of landing on the coveted New York Times bestseller list. If a book appears on the list for two or more weeks, it’s selling well because of word-of-mouth. If it appears only once, you may just be seeing evidence that an author had money to burn.
• Impressive blurbs. An endorsement quote generally reflects the fact that an author has powerful or popular friends. I’d estimate that no more than 15% of the people who provide quotes endorsing books have actually read the books. They’re doing their friends a favor — or sometimes, fulfilling a quid pro quo for a previous endorsement of their book.
• A few dozen positive reviews. What does it mean if a book has all, or almost all, five-star reviews? If there are only a dozen or so reviews, all that means is that the author got a bunch of their friends to pop over to Amazon and rate the book. One hundred reviews with an average of 4.6 stars is a reflection of quality. Sixteen reviews, all five stars, should make you suspicious. There are also unscrupulous companies offering Amazon reviews for a fee, usually easily spotted because the reviews are filled with misspellings, free of relevant content, and highly similar to each other.
• Author who is seen on TV or a podcast. It’s great if the author has gotten a moment to shine on the “Today Show,” or has been featured on Joe Rogan. Who deserves the credit for that? The author’s publicist. It doesn’t mean the book is any good.
• Book awards. I’d estimate that there are 463 different book awards. Most of them are restricted to people willing to pay entry fees. If you haven’t heard of the award — or if the judging criteria aren’t posted publicly — then it’s unlikely to represent anything other than an author’s willingness to pay the fee.

So, what should impress you? High on my list are recommendations from people I actually know. It also pays to read the description on Amazon or the back flap and decide if you’re interested in the book’s promise. Even better is if the author has provided a free chapter you can review.

Truly popular books are popular because they’re useful and generate word-of-mouth. That’s pretty easy to spot in the wild. Those other signals are suspect, so book buyers should be suspicious.

News for writers and others who think

Sixteen Nobel Laureates in economics and dozens of other thinkers signed a statement suggesting that policymakers and leaders should prepare now for AI-generated economic disruption. It’s a wakeup call. Will it wake anyone up and lead to action? Doubtful.

Serial entrepreneur and investor Jeremy Allaire published a deeply researched treatise on the agentic economy and the financial infrastructure that underpins it.

Cloudflare is enabling publishers to opt out of Google AI scraping — and at the same time, become invisible to Google Search. Publishers trying to hide from Google would reverse decades of strategy trying to be as visible as possible.

NORC, a major nonprofit research organization, announced the NORC Center on AI and Data Quality, with a mission to “ensure that the data behind AI is sound and that the information produced with AI is defensible enough to inform society’s most important decisions.” Everyone complains about AI hallucinations. This is the first credible group attempting to do something about them.

Publishers sued Google for scraping books. What’s different in this suit? Google already has a deal that allows it limited access for indexing for Google Books. The publishers’ suit claims they went way beyond what they agreed to.

Three people to follow

Sam Shaddox , AI and startup attorney

David Walter , launching bookinsights.ai to help publishers leverage data to make smarter decisions

Kevin Maguire , examining fatherhood and coaching leaders

Three books to read

The Maverick’s Museum: Albert Barnes and His American Dream by Blake Gopnik (Ecco Press, 2025). A rich guy hoovered up impressionist paintings and displayed them to the public, alienating and eschewing the artistic hoi-polloi.

The God Test: Artificial Intelligence and Our Coming Cosmic Reckoning by Robert Wright (Simon & Schuster, 2026). Could AI give the human race a sense of purpose?

Life at the Speed of Play: Launch Products People Love! by Mark Pincus (Harper Business, 2026). How to innovate at breakneck speed.

Programming note

I’ll be on vacation next week. No newsletter. No work. Nothing but mountains and relaxation.