Correction Appended

THE New York Times best-seller list is a powerful and mysterious institution that both reports and drives the sales of books around the nation. Bookstores from Palo Alto to Miami display New York Times best sellers near the entrance and often discount them heavily to bring in customers. Authors can make big bonuses for hitting the list, and their subsequent books carry the words, “By the New York Times best-selling author,” leading to more sales.

Although competing lists are produced by as many as 40 daily newspapers and by Publisher’s Weekly, the Times list — there are actually 13 of them, divided by categories of books — “is the gold standard,” said Larry Kirshbaum, the former chief executive of Time Warner Book Group and now a literary agent.

But the list, compiled in strict secrecy to prevent cheating by publishers and authors, is not a completely accurate barometer of what the reading public is buying, and it has generated controversy from time to time, most recently last month, when “Night,” Elie Wiesel’s haunting memoir of survival in Nazi death camps, was summarily dropped because the editor of the best-seller list decided the book was an “evergreen” that The Times would no longer track.

Making the list can be huge. The novelist James Patterson holds the record with 37 Times best sellers, some with co-authors; 25 hit No. 1. Patterson still remembers the feeling when he first became a Times best seller in 1993 with “Along Came a Spider.” “It was truly thrilling and exhilarating,” he said. “It’s a little bit of, ‘You’ve made it.’”

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Not making the list, or falling off — some books last only a week — can be devastating. “If you’re not on the list and you’re a publisher, you get a very anguished call from your author,” Kirshbaum said. “Why aren’t I on the list?”

Getting kicked off when your sales are still booming can be bewildering. “Night,” which has sold millions of copies since it was first published in English 47 years ago, was enjoying a revival with a new translation by Wiesel’s wife, Marion. At one point last year, it was simultaneously No. 1 on the nonfiction paperback list, No. 3 on the same list in its original edition and No. 7 on the hardcover list. But on Sept. 23, the day The Times introduced an expansion of its best-seller lists, “Night” was dropped after a run of 80 weeks, even though it had been No. 9 on the paperback list the week before and the publisher said sales were as strong as ever.

“People called me to ask what happened, and I really couldn’t explain it,” Wiesel said. He said he still can’t after an explanation from The Times.

Wiesel’s puzzlement made me curious about the list. How is it put together? How accurate is it? Why does “Night” become an evergreen at 80 weeks when Malcolm Gladwell’s “The Tipping Point” remains on the list at 164 weeks?

One of the first things I learned is that much of what the publishing world thinks it knows about the list is wrong or out of date. For example: The Book Review editor, Sam Tanenhaus, has nothing to do with compiling it, though it is published weekly in his section; it is handled by the news surveys department. The list isn’t tabulated from paper questionnaires sent to booksellers; it’s entirely computerized, after a recently completed two-year project. The roster of outlets surveyed is not adjusted only once every five years; it changes constantly.

Another misconception is that booksellers are surveyed only on a list of titles determined by publishers’ shipments, keeping “sleeper” books — distributed in smaller numbers — off the list. That is not the way it happens. Instead, some companies dump all of their book sales to The Times, while others fill out an online form based on the previous week’s best sellers and including space for unlisted books that have sold well.

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Clark Hoyt Credit Chuck Kennedy/McClatchy-Tribune

Unlike Nielsen’s BookScan, which gives industry subscribers actual sales numbers at 4,500 retail outlets, the Times list, like those of other newspapers, gives only a book’s ranking. USA Today and The Wall Street Journal, two competing national newspapers, name the booksellers they survey. The Times refuses to do that for fear that someone will try to game the system — for example, making strategic bulk buys to inflate sales numbers. When bulk purchases are reported, The Times puts the symbol of a dagger beside the book’s title to alert readers.

“We are aware of certain publishers and certain authors, and we watch those publishers and authors for certain trends,” said Deborah Hofmann, the editor of the best-sellers list. “People do try to game the list.”

Why the attempts at manipulation? Michael Korda, the former editor in chief of Simon & Schuster, said some authors’ contracts call for bonuses as high as $100,000 for hitting No. 1 on the Times list. Alan Sorensen, an associate professor at Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business, who has studied the list’s impact on sales, said that if a first-time author makes the list, the book will sell 57 percent more copies than it would have otherwise. He said the list helps established authors less.

There are usually differences between the Times list and others, often, apparently, because of timing or because different lists put books in different categories. USA Today, for example, combines all books — fiction, nonfiction, paperback and hardcover — into a single list. No book is ever banished as an “evergreen,” meaning “Night” can be found at No. 129 this week, nine spots below “The Official SAT Study Guide.” But “for what The New York Times is doing,” Sorensen said, “it’s very accurate.”

Why banish a book just because it has been around a long time? The Times wants a list “that’s lively and churns and affords new authors the opportunity to be recorded,” Hofmann said.

In a message to Wiesel’s publisher, Hofmann called “Night” a modern classic and said most of its sales are now driven by student reading lists. “The editorial spirit of the list is to track the sales of new books,” she said. While the new translation brought “Night” back onto the list last year, Hofmann said, “we simply cannot track such books indefinitely.”

When to retire a popular book from the list is a judgment call based on various considerations, including a pattern of sales and whether the title is a reissue, Hofmann said. “It’s a fair and seasoned judgment based on what we’ve observed over time,” she said.

When I asked about “The Tipping Point,” Hofmann said the book was still selling in its first edition.

A standard like this has a commercial benefit for the newspaper. Publishers tend not to advertise titles that are perpetual-motion strong sellers, like “Night,” “To Kill a Mockingbird” and “The Catcher in the Rye.” Clearing them off the list creates room for new books that publishers will advertise.

Hofmann and her boss, Janet Elder, editor of the news surveys department, said they are considering the creation of a classics list, which would include the perennial best sellers.

For my money, if the main list is a best sellers list, it ought to reflect what’s selling best, classics and new books alike.

Correction: October 28, 2007

Alan Sorensen’s title in the Oct. 21 public editor’s column appeared incorrectly in some copies. He is an associate professor at Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business.

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