I think they probably learned this from Scientology who I read used to, and maybe still, keep L Ron Hubbard on the best seller list. Driscoll and Evangelicals make for an easy target to generate indignation because of the obvious hypocrisy. It would have been nice if the reporter had dug a little deeper to see who else is doing this stuff. I kind of wonder how many Hillary or Obama books are collecting dust in the warehouses of the DNC and various labor unions.
Apparently the tactic is popular among those who use it to build a consulting constituency:
http://online.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424127887323864304578316143623600544
The trick is, the spike in sales is short-lived, but the status of “best selling author” can be played indefinitely. The “secret sauce” is how ResultSource manages to escape the bulk buying flag and make it look like their bulk purchase is actually a large number of individual purchases. If I were guessing, I’d say they’ve got some way to automate the purchases, so they can set the program for a given quantity, then have the automation buy them all individually. But that theory is not too good, because wouldn’t they all have to be different identities to the system they’re buying from? Different names and addresses? Curious.
Anyway, yes, the author of this article is apparently just unloading on Driscoll because of ant-evangelical bias and stereo-type. Other kinds of people do this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ResultSource
It’s not illegal, but it is arguably immoral, assuming the technique for gaming the system is designed to mislead both the list-makers and through them the public.
Having said that, I think there’s some of that’s just built into how publishing works. The author is typically going to try to find some way to prime the pump and then build on that initial excitement. But that’s not the same as buying a spot on the best seller lists. Just good old fashioned sweat equity.