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Topics: Conspiracy Theories, Books, US News
Daisy Phillipson
Topics: Conspiracy Theories, Books, US News
Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones claims he's sold more books that JK Rowling's Harry Potter series.
But he's got a theory as to why the numbers don't add up.
The far-right InfoWars host – who was recently found guilty of defamation in a trial brought on by the families of the victims of the Sandy Hook school shooting – made the comments in reference to his new book, The Great Reset.
According to the synopsis, the book features Jones' analysis of 'the global elite's international conspiracy to enslave humanity and all life on the planet'.
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Appearing on Wednesday's (September 14) episode of Steven Crowder's Louder with Crowder series, the host asked Jones to talk about The Great Reset.
The 48-year-old was more than happy to oblige, telling Crowder that the book sales have been more than any Harry Potter book.
But, according to him, publishing houses have been concealing the true figures, hence why it's not appearing on numerous best-seller lists.
Jones said: "It went to number one on a whole bunch of charts, went to number two on Wall Street Journal and a bunch of others. And then that's even with some rigging. It should have been number one there."
He went on to claim that The New York Times said it wasn't going to list the book due to the author behind it.
"So there were books that were number 19, 15, you name it on the New York Times Best Seller List that we sold 10, 15, 20 times more books than those, so we should have been number one," he said, alleging that he hit these figures in the first month of sale.
"That's how that happens. It doesn't count all the massive amounts that got sold online at Amazon or InfoWars.com," Jones said.
"So it is the number one book, not just fiction, not just non-fiction – all of them. More than any textbook, more than any Harry Potter book."
As it stands, there really are no sales figures to back up the claims, although a list by Publishers Weekly suggests it's at #11 with approximately 30,000 sales.
Jones lost his legal battle in the defamation case last year, having been taken to court for claiming the Sandy Hook school shooting was a ‘false flag’ operation orchestrated by the government in an attempt to enforce stricter laws on guns.
A total of 26 people, including 20 schoolchildren, lost their lives as a result of the shooting in Newtown, Connecticut in December 2012, when 20-year-old Adam Lanza opened fire at the school.
The false claims spread by Jones saw the victims’ families subjected to years of harassment – both online and in-person – The Independent reports.
As a result, they successfully argued that Jones had made money from spreading his baseless conspiracy theories through his channel on Infowars.
The default ruling over the fourth defamation lawsuit brought against Jones came after he failed to hand over documents as evidence to support false claims that the mass shooting was a hoax.
In a statement shared with UNILAD, Maria Case, manager of external communications at The New York Times said: "Each week our best sellers team calculates which books are selling across the U.S. based on confidential sales data submitted by a panel of tens of thousands of storefronts and online retailers as well as specialty and independent bookstores.
"Each week we apply the same standards to provide Times readers with our best assessment of what books are broadly popular at that time.
"Each week tells a different story and we will continue to track this title. Our methodology is published with the lists online.
"We encourage readers to look at our lists, which go back many years and are available online, to get a sense of trends. They’ll see that conservative authors have routinely ranked high and in great numbers on The Times's lists."
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