How YA Twitter caught a scammer and solved a case fit for the FBI

The idea that anyone would try and scam the Young Adult community, a community built by people who grew up reading books that encouraged them to be inquisitive, be curious, and investigate, is comical.

This past week, the New York Times released their Young-Adult-Best-Seller List for the week of Sep. 3 but something was off.

For the past 25 weeks, the incomparable novelThe Hate U Give by Angie Thomas reigned supreme.

But when the NYT list came out, another book, Handbook for Mortals by Lani Sarem, slid into the top spot. Books ebb and flow on the list, that's nothing abnormal, but what was abnormal was the fact that no one had ever heard of Lani Sarem's novel… nor could they buy it anywhere.

Phil Stamper, a YA writer himself, was on the case. Geeknation, a pop culture website, announced this past July they were set to get into the publishing game. A month later they release an NYT bestseller? I don't know about you but usually when I smell smoke fire isn't far behind. And this story is about to go from weird to… well… *NYSNC weird.

Stamper and fellow writer Jeremy West discovered that anonymous people were calling NYT list-affiliated bookstores and placing bulk orders for Handbook for Mortals so it would be reported the book was selling. A book generally needs to sell around 5,000 copies to crack the NYT list so ordering bulk is a surefire way to get those sales.

So far we have a rigged NYT list, a book no one has heard of, and bogus bulk orders. What could make this story more incredulous? Well, J.C. Chasez, the one from *NSYNC who failed to launch a solo career, tweeted about the book because Lani Sarem is his cousin.

More and more bookstores started to come forward about suspicious calls they received about Handbook for Mortals that all basically sounded the same — a movie was being made and/or there was an future event so place a bulk order and the books can come whenever. Silly rabbits, don't you know tricks are for kids? It seems they were hoping to make a movie out of Handbook for Mortals and you can bet a "# 1 NYT Best Selling Author" is more enticing to investors and producers than a book no one has ever heard of. But scamming your way to the top does not work. Just ask Sharpay Evans.

Thanks to the investigative work of Stamper and West, the NYT corrected the list and rightly placed The Hate U Give back in the number one spot.

The moral of the story? Well, there's a few. Probably don't buy Handbook for Mortals. Definitely buy The Hate U Give. And don't ever, ever, ever mess with a community of people who grew up with characters who would sneak into the Forbidden Forest when something seemed amiss.

The YA Community doesn't run from the fire, they run into it.

@jenniferficarra