You often hear of stories that tell of what horrible things can happen to a business when they deal with less than complete or inaccurate information... but how often you hear that accurate information may be prove disastrous?

That's exactly the scenario as describe by Slate today: accurate book sales information may become "The Bookseller's' Biggest Nightmare"

If you follow the best-seller lists, then you may want to follow this other Slate link on what goes behind such best-seller lists such as The New York Times.

Most surprising to me: the most accurate best-seller list comes from ... (wait for it) : USA Today!

"Unlike the more prestigious lists, which prune out the lowbrow riffraff, USAT ranks the 150 top-selling books on a single list—be they romance, fine literature, sci-fi, scholarly biography, or self-help. The chart reflects actual sales figures at around 3,000 independent, chain, discount, and online booksellers. No statistical projecting, no fudging, no telling stores which books to report on (as the New York Times list does— ...."

Who knew?