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Posted on 04/10/2006 6:02:08 AM PDT by PJ-Comix
It is now about 3 years since the Hillary Clinton Lying History book has been published. And a STRANGE thing has happened. Despite the fact that her book was widely lauded in the press as the BEST SELLING Non-Fiction book ever published, I have yet to see used copies of it at flea markets or at used book stores.
I often check out both those markets for books. Normally when there is a big best selling book, such as a Stephen King or Tom Clancey book, you will see MANY used copies of them at the flea markets or thrift shops within a couple of years. The reason is simple. When books accumulate, people don't always keep them. What happens is that they either just throw them in the garbage, sell them at the flea market, or donate them to thrift stores such as the Salvation Army, Goodwill, etc.. As a matter of fact, people rarely just toss books into the garbage so most such books end up at flea markets or thrift stores. When you have a supposedly BEST SELLING book with MILLIONS of copies (supposedly) out there, they have to GO somewhere when the owner wishes to make more room on his bookshelf or moves. Thus the more popular the book, the more of them you will eventually see at flea markets or thrift stores.
Now here is a FASCINATING observation I have made. I have thus far seen NOT ONE of the Hillary books at either flea markets or thrift stores. Have you? Think about it. This book supposedly has MILLIONS of copies floating around out there and yet somehow they just don't make their way thru the normal book recycling system like other books. So what happened to all the Hillary books?
One clue was my personal observations shortly after it was published. I was curious if Hillary's book was popular in conservative areas of the country so I checked the Amazon Geographic book sales areas in places like Jackson, MS, etc.. Well, Hillary's book didn't even make the top ten list in such places so I began checking more liberal locations. Still NO Hillary books in the top 10. Finally I checked out ultra liberal locales like Berkely, CA and Manhattan. Amazingly in none of these places did Hillary's book show up on the top ten list. Some of you may remember that I posted these findings at the time here on the FR.
I did note one oddity however. Despite the fact that the Hillary book did not appear in almost any of the locales that I checked, it did score huge sales in some small town that I never heard of in Virginia. WHY?
Could the vast majority of the Hillary books (except for the autographed copies sold for profit on eBay) end up in warehouses? That is my suspicion and most likely they are still SITTING there. And who bought those books only to warehouse them? Labor unions? Other organizations? Using Freakonomics observations makes me suspicious that Hillary has received campaign contributions via PHONY book sales.
Remember, there is NO WAY that a BEST SELLING book won't show up later on at flea markets or thrift stores. That is what happens to all books and the bigger the book sales the more of them appear in such places. Please keep this in mind the next time you go to a flea market and see tons of Stephen King or Tom Clancey books.
Try looking for the Hillary book. So far I have seen NOT ONE of them.
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You can't think of these books in the same way as a "regular" book: those who bought the books are keeping them. It's a religious thing for them -- would you throw out your Bible, or sell it at a thrift shop or flea market?
My clue is this: I know some folks who had Hillary Clinton's (ghost-writer's) "It Takes A Village" set out on their bookshelf so that everybody could see that they had it. Hell, they may even have read it -- but they wanted everybody to know they had it. It was a real eye-opener for me, that people would buy and display Hillary's book as first and foremost a political statement.
And, in the same way, the folks who bought "Lying History" did so as a political statement. They'd just as soon throw away Mao's Little Red Book.
I saw Monica's book at Goodwill a couple of weeks ago.
Limbaugh's books have been around a while, so I am not surprised to see more of them. It took a while for them to start showing up.
"Midnight" is an interesting case, because I was looking for it. It was on the best seller list every week for four years. When I finally found one at a garage sale I had to pay six dollars for it. A record for me.
Harry Potter hardbacks are still uncommon.
But I agree with your analysis. Most political memoirs go in the sale bin within a few months.
It's called "stockpiling ammo". Facts from anti-Shrillary books are priceless.
Because the book is such a valuable part of the reader's life.
How could they give it up for $2 in a garage sale?
(/sarc)
So far I have seen NONE of the Hillary books at these locations.
I see them all the time. Also the Rice Vampire books.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/0743222253/ref=dp_olp_2/102-8818088-8819326?%5Fencoding=UTF8
223 available in paperback at amazon(new and used from $.01)
to compare
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1400054192/sr=1-1/qid=1144676727/ref=pd_bbs_1/102-8818088-8819326?%5Fencoding=UTF8&s=books
How to Talk to a Liberal (If You Must) : The World According to Ann Coulter (Paperback)
by Ann Coulter
79 used & new available from $4.50
Sure. And yet I they really did sell a hell of a lot of these books -- maybe even the million books that were reported at the time.
Rather than hypothesizing a warehouse somewhere, I think it's a much more profitable line of thought to wonder a) who bought these books, and b) why wouldn't you be seeing them?
The answer to a) is simple: about the only folks who'd buy that book are Hillary! fans -- liberals, hard-core feminists, and the like. Other folks are so turned off by Hillary! that they'd never buy her book in the first place. I really don't think many people just picked the book up for a quick read. IIRC, the old threads about the people at Hillary!'s book-signings pretty much confirm the impression.
The answer to b) follows directly from a) -- if the only people who buy the book are those who are Part Of The Cause, they're not gonna dump the book. Ever.
Which is not to say that you're wrong about inflated sales figures: I'm quite certain you're correct about that. Maybe there is a warehouse-full somewhere, waiting for Hillary! to throw her hat into the ring. But I'm betting they were mulched.
Great observations, and thanks for posting this! I wouldn't be surprised to see that the book scam was a cover for illegal campaign donations. If anybody finds that warehouse, make sure to post the info!
The only problem with your theory that Hillary fans bought up her books is that I actually POSTED on the FR my observations at the time of what was happening in such liberal locales as Berkeley and Manhattan. Hillary's book right at the "height" of her sales at the beginning didn't even register in the top 10 at such locations.
At the same time, I think that a million or two books were sold in a diffused manner across the country, which can explain why she never cracked the top 10 in any one place.
There are undoubtedly a couple million lefties who would buy her book, and who probably did buy it. And those are the types of folks who wouldn't ever get rid of it.
Not even in the top 10 in Manhattan at the time the book was released. Remember, this was supposed to be the TOP SELLING non-fiction book in the history of publishing.
Well yeah -- and it was supposed to be the most ethical administration in the history of the world. I agree that the numbers were grossly inflated. I suspect the majority of the books ended up in a mulching vat somewhere.
But that doesn't explain why you're not seeing the books at all: there really were a lot of them sold -- and the interesting question is: where are those copies? I think I've answered that.
There's 567 'used' copies at Amazon.
Interesting observation. Makes sense to me.
Oh.
I thought "Freakonomics" was the term for Hillary's plan to restructure our economy.
Never mind.
You are correct--storing millions of books would cost a lot of money.
Of course, that is assuming the books were printed in the first place. IMO, it was just a straw deal used to hide political "donations".
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Hillary Clinton's revisionist tome notwithstanding, 'living history' begets a certain symmetry. It is in that light that I make this not-so-modest proposal on this day, exactly 64 years after the attack on Pearl Harbor.