You have to compare Ramit Sethi to the many people trying to do this and failing. Very few people take on Loopt, because you have to accomplish so much to go from 100% odds of failure to 99%. But in Sethi's case, every marginal action -- writing a post, writing a comment, tweaking your layout, etc. -- can get you closer. This means that someone who wants to compete with Sethi can either be more talented (not something you can factor into the "Follow these simple but difficult steps..." analysis) or work marginally harder. Either way, he's stuck in the position of constantly having to compete to be a bit better than the next guy -- and everyone else gets to know that to be the next Sethi, they've just got to work harder than the current one.
It's like the steel business versus the soft drink business. It's really hard to succeed in soft drinks; if you're not Coke or Pepsi, you're kind of screwed. In steel, anyone can compete. Steel is just steel, so if you make a little more, or make it for a little less, nobody cares who you are or how long you've been in business. The steel business chews up capital with very low annual returns. For every dollar of tangible assets, Coca-Cola brings in $.75 in profit every year.
IIRC though it's actually getting easier to make the best seller list over time. The reason for this is that before Amazon and computers, being on the best seller list meant getting your book on the table in front of the door and next to the cash register in all the bookstores. This is no longer the case, because most books are sold by a handful of chains, and they don't do their laydowns based on the best seller lists but rather based on computer algorithms and deals with publishers. In B&N making the best seller list still gets you a discount and onto a special shelf, but it's still less good than getting onto the front table.
Because of this the only people with a big incentive to game the list anymore are people who want to use the credential to use consulting, so there is a lot less competition than there used to be. Of course new authors still try to game the list all the time for ego, but usually they do it half-heartedly so if you really have a permission asset in place and a good strategy its not that hard.
It's like the steel business versus the soft drink business. It's really hard to succeed in soft drinks; if you're not Coke or Pepsi, you're kind of screwed. In steel, anyone can compete. Steel is just steel, so if you make a little more, or make it for a little less, nobody cares who you are or how long you've been in business. The steel business chews up capital with very low annual returns. For every dollar of tangible assets, Coca-Cola brings in $.75 in profit every year.