Really, the only thing in a bookstore that's prominently displayed honestly is the staff picks stuff. Everything else -- window space, the stacks in the middle of the floor, the front desk stuff -- is bought and paid for.
The "bribes," by the way, are usually called "co-op fees." These sometimes show up without the publisher knowing it. Baker and Taylor and Amazon are famous for forcing co-op fees. In Amazon's case, it tends to be a dollar or less per month per title. Baker and Taylor just selects random times to hit you for a ten spot, or 20 bucks.
When you get a book set up with distributor, you have the option of approving certain levels of co-op fees. So, if I wanted, I could say that my marketing budget is $500,000 and I am willing to pay co-op fees up to that amount. Typically, the publisher then has a publicist who goes out and enforces that shit. At the big houses, publicists will be a proper, salaried position. But even having it out there passively opens the door. Indie bookstores are the nastiest -- they'll just suddenly display your book (perhaps honestly selected based on appreciation of quality) and then charge the co-op fee which, of course, you have to okay. This is some real gravy money for indie bookstores and they all abuse it. It can translate to thousands in profit and the only cost is that they order two or three times the usual amount (which they then return six months later for a full refund).
Bookstores are evil. I secretly celebrate the closing of indie bookstores, and I hope the big box bookstores all implode. The indies are feeding off of hapless publishers and the big box fuckos have destroyed the human nature of the business.
