Tag: Books
Pompeo Buys Own Book to Juice NYT Best-Seller List
$42,000
“Mike Pompeo’s political action committee shelled out $42,000 on books the day his memoir hit bookshelves,” Forbes reports. “Pompeo’s memoir debuted at No. 3 on the New York Times best-seller list for hardcover nonfiction. Two weeks later, it remains on the rankings at No. 5. The Times notes that retailers reported bulk orders of Never Give An Inch.”
The Republican National Committee REALLY Liked Don Jr.’s Book
$94,800
New FEC disclosures show a single large RNC payment of $94,800 to Books-a-Million in October, a few days before Triggered was released, the New York Times reports. An RNC spokesman confirmed that the expenditure was connected to their promotion of Donald Trump Jr.’s book.
‘Anonymous’ Could Get $10 Million Book Deal
$10 million
A book deal for the “senior Trump administration official” who wrote the anonymous New York Times op-ed could be worth $10 million, literary agent Keith Urbahn tells the Washingtonian. Literary agent Larry Weissman adds that the most lucrative deal would likely be struck before Anonymous’s identity is leaked, intentionally or unintentionally.
Obama Books to Fetch at Least $60 Million
$60 million
“A blockbuster auction for the global rights to two books by Barack and Michelle Obama has reached more than $60m, according to people with knowledge of the sales process, a record sum for US presidential memoirs,” the Financial Times reports.“The Obamas are writing separate books but selling the rights jointly.”
It Takes a Whole Book to Explain Why Lindsey Graham Is Single
126
Number of pages in “My Story: Lindsey Graham,” an e-book published on the presidential candidate’s website this week, wherein “Graham — best known as a flame-thrower on immigration reform and an outspoken critic of President Obama’s foreign policy — has opened up about his lost loves and a near proposal to a Lufthansa flight attendant,” CNN reports.
Barack Obama’s Literary Criticism
He’s just sad.
— President Obama, quoted by the New York Post, picking up a copy of Chuck Todd’s new book, “The Stranger: Barack Obama in the White House,” in a Washington, D.C., bookstore.
It’s Amazon’s World and We Just Live in It
I wanted to buy a book a few months ago for a relative who was hospitalized in a city about 40 miles north and who wasn’t a TV watcher. I figured I’d stop off at the mall or a shopping center as I drove up and pick up some books and magazines.
Except there were no bookstores. While I had been floating along, ordering books from Amazon because they were cheap or putting them on my Amazon wish list and waiting for the prices to come down, book shops all around me were going out of business. Instead of finding some cool books and artsy, interesting magazines, I had to stop at a grocery store to buy a lame edition of O Magazine by Oprah. I believe it went unread.
If you watch the Colbert Report, you know that the responsible thing to do right now is to boycott Amazon. The massive “Don’t Be Evil” online seller is engaged in a very evil battle with traditional publishers to control pricing and set off a dumbing down process that will likely promote self-publishing as an Amazon work-around.