Lucianne Goldberg: Hillary's Book Sales 'Way Below 200,000'

NewsMax.com ^ | 6/14/03 | Carl Limbacher and NewsMax.com Staff

[kattracks]

According to renowned New York City literary agent Lucianne Goldberg, those fabulous book sale figures racked up by Hillary Clinton's "Living History" may turn out to be mere publishing industry hype.

Reacting to Tuesday's reports Mrs. Clinton sold 200,000 copies a day after her book's release, Goldberg told syndicated radio hosts John Batchelor and Paul Alexander, "I'm told you can't get those figures in one day."

Citing another publishing source, she added, "They do have a system for [tallying up early book sales] but they doubt that they were able to access it that swiftly."

While Goldberg said her sources didn't have an accurate sales figure for Hillary's book, she put the number at "way below 200,000."

What about Simon & Schuster's million copy initial press run? Goldberg said the figure is just public relations hype and that the first run printing was probably no more than 350,000 copies.

The longtime publishing maven explained there would be no need for Simon & Schuster to print a million books. If they needed more, "you push the button on the press and you can crank out another 50,000 in a 24-hour cycle and ship them out."

In fact, sources in the field are reporting disappointing sales for Mrs. Clinton's book, Goldberg contended. "I can tell you a store that gets a call from the New York Times best seller list, and they're looking over there at 50 copies that haven't been bought."

She agreed with the characterization of Mrs. Clinton's book as "a loss leader" and predicted, "If this book doesn't take off over the weekend [Simon & Schuster] is going to be eating a lot of these copies."

Editor's Note: Frustrated by the media puffery of Hillary's new book? -- you can fight back and expose Hillary: Click Here Now

Read more on this subject in related Hot Topics:

Sen. Hillary Clinton

[kitchen]

... 200000 for the first day is likely bunkum, or at dishonest best with presales tossed in.

I don't disagree with you at all although I might select a somewhat stronger word than bunkum to express your sentiment. My point is that someone most likely has access to the actual number, pretty close to real time.

[Salvation]

**"If this book doesn't take off over the weekend [Simon & Schuster] is going to be eating a lot of these copies."**

I am very disappointed with this news. </sarcasm off

[Political Junkie Too]

I wonder if the Bush Administration is buying up all the copies and sending them to Iraq to be used as cooking fuel for the barbeque's until all the power comes back on. ;-)

-PJ

[Reverend Bob]

Simon and Schuster doesn't sell retail. If they sold 200,000 copies it's at wholesale. Translated, that means "returnable" -- any copies that don't sell can be returned for full credit. If I worked for the IRS (which I don't) I'd be getting ready to compare their taxable sales figures to what they're announcing.

Anyone have IRS connections?

[Liz]

News reports say Hitlery received to date some $4M of the $8M she negotiated. I wonder if there's a clause in her contract saying she has to sell so many books to get the rest of the moola? Whatever. Stupid Simon & Schuster is still out a bundle.

[PJ-Comix]

Remember when Newt took a $400,000 advance on a book and the press hounded him until he agreed to, I believe, only be paid royalties on the books sold?

The reporters who hounded Newt on this should be tracked down and asked if Hillary should only be paid the royalties on the books sold.

[Mia T]

[GailA]

Does that total count in all the books bought for Higher Ed libraries, county libraries?

[The Wizard]

I am happy to read this to counter all the "PR" be spread by the media whoresw who kiss the clintons ass all day everyday....

It was clear that the book was a flop when 200 people showed up in NYC....Howard stern had 4000.....it's over crusty

[mewzilla]

And I'd be willing to bet that public libraries have accounted for most of the purchases...

[varon]

.........resident doofi.............

You certainly know how to turn a phrase...............LOL

[varon]

I bet you a nickel the S&S is counting the books they sold to those 3500+ retail outlets as "sales".

BINGO!

[upchuck]

I don't know. For purposes of my illustration I was being conservative(!) in my estimate of the number of retail outlets selling the lies. I suspect the actual number is quite a bit higher if you factor in libraries, etc. as you suggest.

[2 Kool 2 Be 4-Gotten]

Just wondering how you arrived at that conclusion of 1/4 depeleted?

Eactly how you described it. This was at a Costco discount warehouse so the retailing strategies there are more primitive than at the fancy booksellers. There was one table of hardcover books in which say there were 5 or 6 (or 7 or 8, I sort of forget) of hardcover books including "Lying History". The pile for "Lying History" was about 1/4 down and all the other piles seemed about the same size and untouched.

I guess the thing that makes this more believable is that the "pile" is actually a row of piles or even rows and columns. So for the other books all the individual piles were exactly the same heights both within the same book and across different books. Her heinous' books had been picked down, maybe like a carton or oranges where people had started picking one from each of the subpiles until all the subpiles were (more or less) the same height as each other but lower than that of all the other books, and more uneven as well.

A visual would be better than a description, but think I've sort of expressed the idea.

(Like your screen name).

[Semper Paratus]

[Simon & Schuster] is going to be eating a lot of these copies.

Menu S&S Cafeteria:

Lunch
Cardboard Soup
Cream of shredded pages sprinkled with dried ink.
Remainder Bin Cake

[Conservative Iowan]

http://half.ebay.com/cat/buy/prod.cgi?cpid=1099503316&domain_id=1856&meta_id=1

[Lonesome in Massachussets]

Amazon.com reports it's #1 among numbered Swiss Bank accounts.

[DPB101]

The reporters who hounded Newt on this should be tracked down and asked if Hillary should only be paid the royalties on the books sold.

Eric Engberg, Dan Rather and Bob Schieffer's comments are here.

Sure Eleanor Cliff and Margaret Carlson had a lot to say about it too.

[MightyMouseToSaveThe Day]

Eeman, you got me curious about whether hillary was on half.com. So I headed over to half.com, typed in Living History, and voila, up pops hillary's book starting at the sale price of $16.78. There are 4 sellers listed, and all of them, LOL, state in capital letters: 'NEVER READ' 'MINT CONDITION' "BRAND NEW" "NOT USED"!!! hahaha. Looks like these entrepreneurs thought they'd speculate in the hillary book market and are having to sell at a loss. fools! The libs will never admit that her book was a failure among the legitimate book-buying public (i.e., people who actually read books for content, and NOT those who are forced to buy books to curry political favor). I really hope Simon & Schuster lost a heck of a lot of money on this project (or at least, ended up giving a MUCH bigger political donation than they ever intended!)

[js1138]

......there wouldn't be any place to store that number of books.

Someone better tell that to the Harry Potter readers who are expecting Fedex to deliver a million copies next Saturday.