[joelgrus]

Confession: I am guilty of this. Well, sort of. I actually did write a book, and it did sell more than 3 copies, and now I put "best selling author" on my resume, on account of my book being #1 in its category (sometimes) and #1 on oreilly.com (sometimes).

So far no one has gotten bent out of shape about it (or maybe no one has looked at my resume), I assume because they're smart enough to know that a "best selling" data science book is not on the NYT list outselling Stephen King and 50 Shades of Gray and Hunger Games, it's bestselling among "Books / Computers / Data & Data Analytics" or whatever.

Having put my bias on the table, I have a hard time getting worked up about what this guy did, for the following reason:

"Whoa, you're a bestselling author? What did you write?" "It's not a book, it's a picture of my foot." "Oh. That's kind of strange. How many copies did it sell?" "Three." "..."

I mean, it's not like there's some kind of special club where "best selling author" allows you to cut in line or anything. Is there? If there is, please let me know.

[rahimnathwani]

Slightly off topic, but your book is awesome. I'd highly recommend it to anyone who knows Python (or programming in general) but for whom math-notation-heavy stats/ML books are daunting.

My first pass through was a while back, but I still find myself going back to the example code for quick refreshers about key concepts.

[kriro]

Well isn't that the point of the article. Showing how absurd this is and shaming the "I'll make you a bestselling author" snake oil sales people? I love that he explicitly names some of the offenders.