When we published "A Patriot's History of the United States" in 2004, we had two bidders, and went with Sentinel. We got a good deal---far better than we thought we'd get.
The book did well, getting Wall Street J. and NYTimes reviews, and they asked me for a follow up. That book was "America's Victories." We shipped out a lot, but this was 2006, and when the war turned down some, the bookstores returned a lot. So the publisher let that one go out of print. But my 3d book with them was a huge hit, "48 Liberal Lies." I got a good advance, but it sold even better. True: I had one guy who saw me on "Fox and Friends" who called me and wanted to give one copy to every legislator. I thought he meant in Washington. He said, "No, every legislator in America." I thought he was a kook. I said, "That will be expensive." He said, "How much you think $100,000 will get us?" He personally bought 7,680 copies, and I signed every one, and we sent one to every legislator in the USA.
Eventually, that book sold close to 60,000 copies, but because it was steady and not a burst, it never once made the NYTimes bestseller list. Then came "Seven Events that Made America," which did really really well, only the publisher printed 110,000 copies because they thought my appearance on Glenn Beck would cause it to skyrocket. As I said, it made the NYTimes and sold over 50,000, but it's not viewed as a "hit."
My most recent two books---two volumes of "A Patriot's History of the Modern World, vol. 1 and 2,"---has done about 10,000, but again, is viewed as a flop (even though volume 2 has a $35 price tag!). My novels have done ok---no publicity at all, print on demand, but I like them.
Do you have any idea how many copies of Cuomo’s book the publisher printed and how much it cost them?
This will cost them $700,000 + publishing cost - (($18.33 (Amazon hard cover price) x 945 = $17,321.85)).
Holy smoke, that is amazing. What did you do when you started, you just kept on trying till you got a deal? Man, and I know that book “48 liberal lies”, I’ve seen it before. So YOU are the guy who wrote that? That is fantastic. And it went to every legislator ha ha!! That is the best thing I heard all year! How much would it cost to send a million copies to Nancy Pelosi?
I found the number of copies printed.
http://online.wsj.com/articles/betting-big-on-cuomos-memoir-with-200k-copies-1405006679
Betting Big on Cuomo’s Memoir
N.Y. Governor’s Book Will Have an Initial Print Run of 200,000 Copies
July 10, 2014
(excerpt)
Will at least 200,000 people want to purchase New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s forthcoming memoir? His publisher, HarperCollins, is betting on it.
Mr. Cuomo’s book, “All Things Possible: Setbacks and Success in Politics and Life,” will have an initial print run of 200,000 copies, according to a spokeswoman for HarperCollins, which, like The Wall Street Journal, is owned by News Corp.
That is an exceptionally large first printing, though still one-fifth the size of the initial run for former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s recent book, “Hard Choices,” which received a first printing of one million copies.