It could be done, Carol. The big publishing houses and the mass media are concentrated in just a few wealthy hands, and I'm sure it is possible to effectively promote (or suppress) any particular book that some of those major players wish to promote (or suppress). If so promoted, it will sell in very large quantities. It just needs to be brought to people's attention, that's all.

The same thing is done with music. Buffy Sainte-Marie's music, for example, was very effectively suppressed between about 1965 and 1975 by undercover agents of the Johnson and Nixon administrations who brought pressure on the media that play popular music, and it basically killed her career in North America at that time in the sense that she got NO airplay and consequently sold a lot less records. Certain other people got massively promoted during those same years because they weren't seen as a threat by the powers that be...and there was money to be made.

Seems to me like it would be child's play for those people to successfully pump up the sales of a book...if they wanted to. All that is needed to do it is the desire to do it. The means are always there. The public buys what they hear about...in effect, they buy what they are told to buy by the authoritative voices in the media.