An author has lost his spot in the bestseller list after buying 400 copies himself to improve his position.
Books
Mark Dawson revealed that he purchased copies of his book 'The Cleaner' and also asked readers overseas to see if they would purchase copies from him.
Sales monitor Nielsen BookScan launched an investigation and Dawson has now been removed from the Sunday Times hardback list.
In a statement, Nielsen said: ''With current circumstances calling for alternative ways to achieve sales we are having to monitor and judge many cases on an individual basis and we apologise that on this occasion we misunderstood the intentions of this sales transaction.''
Dawson admits that he came up with the idea after noticing that he was in 13th place on the list, although his actions have been criticised by fellow writers.