Interesting
NYT OP-Ed about campaign books.
My fellow Lieberman anti-fans will be pleased to know that his book about the 2000 campaign, Amazing Adventure, is nowheresville, population seven.
But what do sales figures for the works by other candidates say about their prospects? Pure political tracts, like Dr. Dean's and Mr. Kerry's, are notoriously risky undertakings for publishers. If readers aren't interested in the author's candidacy, they have no reason to buy the book. According to this formula, Mr. Kerry's campaign can already be written off.
In all fairness, Mr. Lieberman's memoir is not about this year's campaign, and it was published in January. Still, its sales figures are numbing: in November, demand at Ingram was a grand total of seven copies. (Even Mr. Gephardt's book, "An Even Better Place," which was published in 1999 and is nearly impossible to find, had greater demand than that.) The reading public's lack of interest in Mr. Lieberman's story should be more worrisome to him than Al Gore's recent snub.
Other good stuff in the article:
Dean's book sells well in the South, as does Clark's.
A personal note: I was in the Pgh airport last night, and I saw that "Winning Back America" was being sold at the airport newstand. A good sign, I suppose.