HILLARY BOOK REDUX

If these figures from Drudge Report® are correct, I’m about to be proven wrong on my estimation of the profitability of her book:

LIVING HISTORY sold 438,701 copies in its first full week, NIELSEN’s BOOKSCAN reveals.

The number represents scanned, purchased, sold and bagged copies at AMAZON, BARNES AND NOBLE, BORDER’S, COSTCO and other outlets.

This is over four times what the #2 book sold. If another 100,000-150,000 copies sell, Simon & Schuster will break even on the project.

Now, they need to sell another 3.5 million or so copies for Clinton to “earn” her advance, assuming she’s getting an average of 15% royalties of the discount price, which would amount to roughly $2.10 per book. Still, I’m shocked that this many people are willing to part with that much cash to read this book.

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James Joyner
About James Joyner
James Joyner is Professor and Department Head of Security Studies at Marine Corps University's Command and Staff College. He's a former Army officer and Desert Storm veteran. Views expressed here are his own. Follow James on Twitter @DrJJoyner.

Comments

  1. Kris says:

    Don’t worry, you won’t be the only one who was wrong. How we can continue to underestimate the public’s appetite for the private lives of celebrities?

  2. John Lemon says:

    Or the fact that she is asking unions to buy the book in bulk.

  3. Dave W says:

    Call me cynical, but I am curious to how many of these books were bought by associates of Hillary to ensure that the book sales were high. Remember what happen to the Al Gore books. The poor sales became the subject of jokes on late night shows and screaming headlines about the lack of interest in Al Gore. The last thing Hillary’s people wanted was headlines about “poor sales” in Hillary’s book.

  4. Paul says:

    John…. I looked on your blog and I do not see that you mentioned Hillary asking unions to buy the book….can you link me?

    P

    btw google failed me.