Gaming The New York Times bestseller list is not illegal, but Justin Taylor at Crossway Books called the practice “dishonoring to the Lord.” Dan Busby, president of the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability (ECFA) , calls it “unethical,” and ECFA adopted a rule against members in good standing engaging in it. Rick Christian, a literary agent who founded Alive Communications in 1989, calls such practices “outright fraud” and says, “Let’s quit sugar-coating bad practices, quit looking the other way, quit justifying complicit involvement because others are doing it.” He calls for rules of conduct “every agent, publisher, agency, church, and ministry should sign off on.”
Pastor and author David Jeremiah seems to disagree. According to former employee George Hale, Jeremiah’s ministry, Turning Point, purchased copies of at least three of Jeremiah’s books to push them onto The New York Times...