Nielsen BookScan is a data provider for the book publishing industry, owned by the Nielsen Company. BookScan compiles point of sale data for book sales.

Following the success of Nielsen SoundScan which tracked point of sale figures for music, the Nielsen Company decided to launch a similar service for book sales. Nielsen BookScan was launched in January 2001. Previously, tracking of book sales, such as by the New York Times Best Seller list, was done without raw numbers. The New York Times would survey hundreds of outlets to estimate which books were selling the most copies, and would publish rankings but not figures. Only the publisher of a book tracked how many copies had been sold, but rarely shared this data.

Nielsen BookScan relies on point of sale data from a number of major book sellers. Nielsen BookScan's US Consumer Market Panel currently covers approximately 75% of retail sales and continues to grow. BookScan does not track sales from Wal-Mart/Sam's Club or BJ's; Hudson Group's airport and train and bus locations were added to their reporting panel effective week 1, 2009.

Robert Toru Kiyosaki (born April 8, 1947) is an American investor, businessman, self-help author, motivational speaker, financial literacy activist, and occasional financial commentator. Kiyosaki is perhaps best known for his Rich Dad Poor Dad series of motivational books and other material published under the Rich Dad brand. He has written over 15 books which have combined sales of over 26 million copies. Although beginning as a self-publisher, he was subsequently published by Warner Books, a division of Hachette Book Group USA. His new books appear under the Rich Dad Press imprint. Three of his books, Rich Dad Poor Dad, Rich Dad's CASHFLOW Quadrant, and Rich Dad's Guide to Investing, have been on number one on the top 10 best-seller lists simultaneously on The Wall Street Journal, USA Today and the New York Times. Rich Kid Smart Kid was published in 2001, with the intent to help parents teach their children financial concepts. He has created three "Cashflow" board and software games for adults and children and has a series of "Rich Dad" CDs and disks.

Sylvia June Day is an American writer. She also writes under the pseudonyms S.J. Day and Livia Dare.

Publishers Marketplace reports that Day's New York Times and USA Today bestselling Bared to You and "two more books in the Crossfire trilogy, following an emotionally damaged young couple's erotic and tumultuous relationship" was sold to Berkley Books "in a major deal." Originally self-published on April 3, 2012, Berkley Books accelerated the publication of Bared to You, reissuing the digital edition on May 24, 2012 and announcing a 500,000 initial trade paperback run for the June 12, 2012 print release.

Day is a former Russian linguist for the U.S. Army Military Intelligence.^{[citation needed]} She currently writes romantic fiction novels for Berkley Books (contemporary romance), New American Library (speculative/paranormal), and Kensington Brava (historical) and Zebra (futuristic - under the pseudonym Livia Dare). Day has also published fiction works with Tor-Forge (urban fantasy - under the pseudonym S. J. Day), HarperCollins Avon (speculative/paranormal), Black Lace (contemporary), Ellora's Cave (contemporary/paranormal/futuristic), and non-fiction for BenBella Books and others.

Rush Hudson Limbaugh III ( /ˈlɪmbɔː/; born January 12, 1951) is an American radio talk show host and political commentator. Since he was 16 Limbaugh has worked a series of disc jockey jobs. His talk show began in 1984 at Sacramento radio station KFBK, featuring his ongoing format of political commentary and listener calls. In 1988 Limbaugh began broadcasting his show nationally from radio station WABC in New York, New York. He currently lives in West Palm Beach, Florida, from where he broadcasts the The Rush Limbaugh Show, the highest-rated talk-radio program in the United States.

In the 1990s Limbaugh's books The Way Things Ought to Be (1992) and See, I Told You So (1993) made The New York Times Best Seller list. Limbaugh frequently criticizes, in his books and on his show, what he regards as liberal policies and politicians, as well as what he perceives as a pervasive liberal bias in major U.S. media.

Rush Hudson Limbaugh III was born in Cape Girardeau, Missouri, the son of Mildred Carolyn "Millie" (née Armstrong) and Rush Hudson Limbaugh, Jr. His father was a lawyer and a U.S. fighter pilot who served in the China Burma India Theater of World War II. His mother was a native of Searcy, Arkansas. The name "Rush" was originally chosen for his grandfather to honor the maiden name of family member Edna Rush.

The Books were an American duo, formed in New York City in 1999, consisting of guitarist and vocalist Nick Zammuto and cellist Paul de Jong. Their releases typically incorporate samples of obscure sounds and speech. They have released three critically acclaimed albums on the German label Tomlab, and released their fourth studio album, The Way Out, on Temporary Residence Limited in July 2010.

Zammuto and de Jong first met in New York City in 1999 as they shared the same apartment building. De Jong invited Zammuto to dinner at his apartment, where he played him some of his collection of audio and video samples, including a Shooby Taylor record. Zammuto said of their meeting that "we both kind of knew at that moment that we listened (to music) in interesting ways and had similar approaches to music." Soon after, they began playing what they considered to be pop music, in comparison to their own works, under the name The Books.

In 2000, The Books started work on what would become their début album Thought for Food. Zammuto and de Jong moved locations constantly during this time, recording in New York, Los Angeles, Boston, and finally in the basement of a hostel in North Carolina where Zammuto worked for a while after hiking the Appalachian Trail.