Ever since it was announced that Sarah Palin sold 300,000 copies of "Going Rogue" on the first day, I wondered where those numbers came from. After a little Googling it appears, according to Rush Limbaugh's assertions, that this number cannot possible be true, and, in fact, must be a lie.
More below the fold.
According to AP:
Publisher HarperCollins said Friday that Sarah Palin's memoir sold 300,000 copies its first day, among the best openings ever for a nonfiction book. In 2004, Bill Clinton's "My Life" debuted with sales of 400,000 copies. The year before, Hillary Rodham Clinton's "Living History" started at 200,000.
"Going Rogue" was released this week and its print run already has been increased from 1.5 million copies to 2.5 million, HarperCollins announced Friday. Palin, the former Alaska governor and GOP vice presidential candidate, is in the midst of a nationwide promotional tour.
Implied in the comparison with Bill and Hillary Clinton's book sales is that Sarah Palin is as legitimate an author and politician as the Clintons, with the numbers to prove it. But how was the number 300,000 reached?
Well, I can only speculate. The book was available for pre-order on Amazon for $9.00, and was offered as a premium elsewhere. It's possible that all the pre-orders were calculated as first day sales.
Then there's her book tour.
CINCINNATI — Each of the stores that Sarah Palin has lined up for her book tour has just three hours with the former Alaska governor in-store to try to move the minimum of 2,500 copies of "Going Rogue" publisher HarperCollins mandates a store must order in exchange for her visit. So far, that hasn’t proved difficult.
With 29 announced stops, that adds up to at least 72,500 copies of her book — just from the stores she’s visiting.
Link to full article
It's possible those 72,500 copies were also added to the total. Then there's people who actually went to a book store and bought the book.
By the end of the week, the tally ballooned to 700,000:
Sarah Palin's 'Going Rogue' Outsells Hillary Clinton's Memoir in First Week by Joe Tirella - FOXNews.com
"Going Rogue" was Amazon's No. 1 bestseller in several categories including biography, history, and non-fiction.
Sarah Palin, a favorite target of late night comedians and "Saturday Night Live" for more than a year, is having the last laugh. Her memoir, "Going Rogue: An American Life," has become the publishing sensation of the holiday season.
The 2008 Republican vice presidential candidate's autobiography has sold more than 700,000 copies in its first week of release -- including 300,000 on the first day alone.
Palin, a less-than-one-term Alaska governor, has even outstripped initial sales of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's memoir, "Living History." The former first lady moved 600,000 copies of her 2003 autobiography in its first week of publication. But Palin came up short against two-term President Bill Clinton, who sold 900,000 copies of his 1008-page tome, "My Life," in the first week.
Link to full article
Yet, all these numbers really mean nothing. After doing a little Googling I came across some comments the one and only Rush Limbaugh made in 2003 concerning Hillary Clinton's book, "Living History."
The headline reads:
SPARING THE RODHAM
Rush Limbaugh: Hillary's publisher lying
Radio host rips Simon & Schuster for inflating sales of Clinton's book
Hmm...that sounds interesting:
Radio talk-show giant and best-selling author Rush Limbaugh is making it absolutely clear what he thinks about the purported success of Hillary Clinton's new book, "Living History."
He says reports of record purchases are simply not true.
"The publisher at Simon & Schuster is lying about the sales of this book," Limbaugh said during his nationally broadcast program yesterday, singling out company president and CEO Jack Romanos.
"He's lying about it being the best-selling book of all time, not just the best-selling book they've published. He's lying about how many copies they've sold – they don't know yet how many copies they've sold. It takes them six months to do audits to pay their authors royalties."
It was on Tuesday's edition of "Your World with Neal Cavuto" on the Fox News Channel that Romanos proclaimed how well sales of the senator's memoir were doing.
"This is the fastest-selling non-fiction book in the history of our industry," Romanos said. "It remains to be seen – we'll know certainly by the end of the year – whether it is the best-selling non-fiction book.
"But, at this point, we estimate we've sold over 600,000 copies in less than a week. We've printed a million 600,000. We've gone back to press off the initial printing of a million by 600,000 more. It's a truly unique opportunity."
"It's all a crock!" exclaimed Limbaugh, who says he knows Romanos well, since Simon & Schuster is the same company that published both of Limbaugh's own best sellers through its Pocket Books division.
"My second book called 'See I Told You So' had a first printing of 2 million," said Limbaugh. "Mrs. Clinton's first printing is rumored to be 1 million. But we've got a source ... an unnamed source at Simon & Schuster saying they made that up, saying, 'Where would we put a million books? Where could we hide 'em? And we don't know how many have been sold we're just saying this because it's part of a PR campaign.' ...
"All I know is that Jack Romanos was at Simon & Schuster when my book printed 2 million original copies. [It was the] first time in non-fiction it had ever been done, it has not been done since ... and those 2 million books sold in eight weeks. ... I don't know what's happening with Mrs. Clinton's book, but I'll guarantee you it isn't that, and Simon & Schuster knows it, and they're making it all up just because they paid her this $8 million advance. They're a bunch of liberals over there anyway and they're just trying to claim that this is the biggest thing since sliced bread. They've been corrupted by the Clinton mystique just like everybody else that gets involved with the Clintons."
Limbaugh complained that no one is challenging the veracity of the sales claims made by the publisher.
Link to full article
So, there you have it, straight from the mouth of authority: "It's all a crock!" I wonder if Limbaugh is complaining today that no one is challenging Sarah Palin's numbers?