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Saturday, June 14, 2003 9:25 p.m. EDT

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

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 that 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."