I know someone whose husband wrote a business leadership book (a crowded category). The book hit the New York Times best seller list for a couple weeks. However, my impression was that he simply paid a publicist (or agent or whatever) who was able to make that happen in some narrow subcategory of the list for 2 weeks. The sole purposes was that on their next printing, they could add the "New York Times Bestseller" badge to the cover. It sounded like a game.