Is Hillary's Book, Hard Choices a “bomb”?

Hotair ^ | 06/17/2014 | Ed Morrissey

[SeekAndFind]

It depends on the definition of “bomb.” First-week sales for Hillary Clinton’s memoir/campaign book Hard Choices would not embarrass most authors; 60,000 hard-bound and 24,000 electronic outsells most other titles offered even by major publishers in a first printing. However, most authors don’t get $14 million advances, and most authors don’t plan to use their book as a springboard into a presidential campaign either.

In those circumstances, Daniel Halper argues, the sales have been, er, brutal:

“Between us, they are nervous at S&S [Simon & Schuster],” says the source, who gave permission for his email to be published. “Sales were well below expectations and the media was a disaster.”

According to this source, a Simon & Schuster insider, “They sold 60,000 hard covers first week and 24,000 ebooks.” The publishing house was “hoping and praying for 150,000 print first week.”

“The 60k represents a less than 10% sell thru based on what they shipped,” says the source.

It’s been reported that one million copies of Clinton’s book were shipped weeks before the June 10 publication date. ”They will be lucky to sell 150,000 total lifetime,” the source writes in the email.

Barnes & Noble sold 24,000 of the hard copies in their chain the first week, making it the top seller in their inventory:

Hillary Clinton’s new memoir, Hard Choices, topped the Barnes & Noble best-seller list in its first week, according to the company’s Nielsen BookScan sales numbers released to publishers on Monday and obtained by BuzzFeed.

Barnes & Noble, the country’s largest retail bookseller, has sold just over 24,000 copies of the book since its release on June 10. Hard Choices debuted at No. 1 on the bookseller’s hardcover best-seller list, which includes fiction and nonfiction.

That’s not bad news, but the comparison to #2 isn’t exactly complimentary:

Clinton’s memoir edged out the new Diana Gabaldon book, Written in My Own Heart’s Blood, for the top spot, selling just 319 more copies, according to the sales list. (The Gabaldon book, released on the same day as Clinton’s, is the eighth installment in her long-running historical sci-fi romance Outlander series.)

As of this morning, Clinton’s memoir topped Amazon’s lists for women’s studies, US history, and political memoirs — not exactly the stuff of mass-marketing success. It only ranked 70th in the paid Kindle section, though, where Gabaldon’s book is ranked 12th. It’s marked with a down arrow this morning, which doesn’t exactly suggest big momentum gathering for the tome. Still, Amazon does not share its actual book sales figures, so it’s difficult to tell without a subscription to one of the sales-measuring services just how many units they’ve moved.

These would be respectable and even thrilling numbers for most authors, but as noted above, Simon & Schuster spent nearly $14 million to get the publishing rights to the book. Even assuming that they get $10 profit from each copy (hard or Kindle), they’ve only recouped 6% of the cost of that bonus on the first week. Perhaps this is more a measure of how insane it was to spend $14 million up front to publish what turned out to be a milquetoast campaign book more than a commentary on the book itself, but either way S&S is going to take a bath on it.

That’s Simon & Schuster’s problem, of course, but Hillary has bigger problems. The real sales job wasn’t the book itself but Hillary Clinton as a presidential candidate. The lack of enthusiasm for the book in its sales figures hurts the perception of Hillary, but nowhere nearly as badly as Hillary herself has damaged it over the past eight days. She has made gaffe after gaffe, underscored her lack of accomplishment at State, and provided no real answers on how she would govern. Indeed, her book and her testimony on the tour the past week has raised a lot more questions about her leadership and her honesty than it answered.

So the book sales may be a flop, but the bigger flop is Candidate Hillary. Even a boost in book sales wouldn’t fix that.

[Doctor 2Brains]

That’s why I have a soft spot for the kenyan. Can you imagine her suffering and her pain? Day in and day out, the nightmare was exquisitely painful and IT DID NOT STOP!!!!! He was 14 years old, he had spent 1.5 hours in the senate, he probably cannot read and she knew it, but was not allowed to say, and day in and day out he ground her filthy, sub-humang effing face into the dirt. He stomped her revolting features into a pile of unrecognizable mush,and he laughed every minute of every day while he did it. The pain must eat at that filhty whore pig like a billion cancers, and she deserves every bit of it.

[depressed in 06]

A little expensive for toilet paper.

[Liz]

The Clintons are relying heavily on "white privilege" to get back into office. The Clintons' have benefitted from, and are climbing back into office, using privileges far beyond those of the working class voter.

"White privilege" denotes the array of advantages the Clintons have cultivated over years in public office. They are over-shadowed by the endless perks of "white privilege":

<><> massive wealth....

<><> multiple homes in posh enclaves....

<><> the chain of high public offices....

<><> privileged friends in high places....

<><> global connections....

<><> constant affirmations of their own worth....

<><> greater social status...

<><> the expansive freedoms wealth and connections provide...

<><> unlimited access to the press to speak freely.....

<><> Bill/Hillary memoirs made millions....

<><> book deal signed in Dec 2000 for $8 million....

<><> three tax-exempt family foundations worth hundreds of millions....

<><> Clinton foundation endowment skyrockets to $200 million overnight....

<><> Hillary's $200,000 speeches to "non-profits".......

<><> Bill's tax-paid cushy pension and benefits....

<><> tax-paid Clinton Library (Sultan of Brunei a donor).....

2016 Hillary is relying on the "income equality" bugaboo to hoist herself into office. That is "white privilege" in a nutshell.

The Clintons strategy is to label others as "different" while presenting themselves as "normal"....The Clinton "normal" is hundreds of millions of dollars laying around without ever having a real job.

Now known as “Lunch-Pail Hillary,” she planned to run a populist campaign, “critical of the Wall Street types”....that's after Hillary pocketed $200,000 from Goldman Sachs.

[WayneS]

Well, Hillary got a big advance from the publisher...

[RJS1950]

Out by the dumpster? What a waste. Depending on the paper they are printed on, they could be stacked in every stall of the store restrooms to be used as toilet paper. More appropriate and more green than sending them to the landfill.

Then again, they would probably irritate your ass as much as seeing her or hearing her on TV irritates mine. Go ahead and send them to the landfill. Spread face up might kill off the rats.

[GOPJ]

Were Simon & Schuster buying future access? Or maybe they were expecting the 20,000 ‘books at a time’ bulk orders from the ME, Chinese, DNC, and George Soros.

[Liz]

The mega-wealthy Clintons have money pouring in from everywhere.....without lifting a finger.

Hillary connivingly planned to campaign on "income inequality" .......running as a phony populist. Campaign strategists warned Hillary her "tone" is important.....(so she can better dupe the voters).

THANK YOU KELLY FILE Megyn ran a news clip of Hilly sing-songing "the cancer of inequality"....in a contrived sap-happy, chirpy voice, wearing a h-u-g-e phony grin.

Reminded me of the classic Willam Castle horror movie, "Mr Sardonicus," (whose face becomes frozen in a horrifying grin while robbing the coffin of his father's grave).

Hillary wears her perpetual 2016 game face.

========================================

The only "good" thing to come out of Hillary's disastrous book tour is the new campaign cry: "Another Clinton administration? Are you nuts."

(Cackle) Will look nice on a bumper sticker.

===============================================

Even more delicious is that Hillary's disastrous book roll-out was managed by Dudester Tommy Vietor---Obama's van-driver with ntl security clearance who Obama appointed his NSA advisor; Vietor sat in on WH Situation Room crisis meetings.

Feel safer, now, America?

DUDESTER VIETOR offered up a truly laughable assesment of Hillary''s hellish book tour. “The Secretary enjoyed spending this week talking about 'Hard Choices' and working with President Obama to restore America’s leadership in the world,” he said in an email. “She’ll continue to be relaxed, candid and direct.”

Must be auditioning for a SNL job--producing comical skits.

[Ruy Dias de Bivar]

Before the next Presidential election you will be able to find HARD CHOICES at all the Salvation Army and Goodwill stores right next to the LEFT BEHIND series of books.

In other words, read or skimmed and tossed.

[Chuzzlewit]

my heart bleeds for the poor Clintoons..I should be so lucky to have that kind of money.

I’ve been enjoying the heck out of Hillary’s hell week.

She is a ruthless person.. she makes this current Prez look like a novice, which he is.

[Malone LaVeigh]

They aren’t that stupid. They most certainly framed the $14M as an ‘advance on sales’. If the sales don’t materialize, she has to pay back proportionately.

You are clearly unfamiliar with The Pirate Code.

[SkyDancer]

They’re being sold here in Australia - at 50% discount. Tables still full.

[Gaffer]

Funny.....She’s not likely to give any back, but I think they structured it so that it can be claimed as a bad debt from a deal gone bad and use it for income offsets.

She’s a pirate if ever there was one.

[Leaning Right]

It takes energy to print a book, transport it to the bookstore, and then haul it off to a landfill. End result: Hillary's book will do more damage to the environment than a coal-fired power plant will do in five years.

Where is the greenie outrage?

[Psalm 144]

So, tell us how you really feel...

:)

[RJS1950]

All very true. If you burn them as fuel in an alternative energy producing plant that burns garbage then you can recover some of that energy. The greenies? They don’t care anyway. They’re in it for the money scams that go along with the green energy movement.

[Lucas McCain]

They should publish it in a roll.

[JLAGRAYFOX]

Hillary Clinton is toast....no.....burnt toast!!! No POTUS run for this braindead chick!!! Just being a grouchy, old, mean, Grandma in pants suits, is in her future!!!

[molson209]

3 for a dollar ,you take 3 and we’ll give you a dollar

[Fantasywriter]

“RE: That’s great, except Huma bought 50,000...”

‘Where did she get the money?’

I read somewhere that it could be an elaborate money laundering scheme. Foreign donations could be used to buy books, thus repaying S&S for their massive campaign donation. There is zero evidence that this is actually happening. I just read it as a theory of what might, or could, happen.

[Fantasywriter]

Even her biggest supporters say the book is boring. She tried to play it safe politically & offend no one; snoozefest. On Benghazi, she answered none of the crucial questions, & still pushed the idea that the video, at least in part, ignited the protest; not one interesting line in the entire chapter. The only personal details she included were sanitized, thus rendering them a sleep aid also.

She’s not that intriguing of a person to begin with, but she could have included some interesting bits. For example, on a personal level she could have revealed the times she has drunk to excess, & how she copes with the resulting hangovers. Tell me that wouldn’t have been interesting. [Yes, it would be on a lowest common denominator level, but still, it wouldn’t put many people to sleep.]

She could discuss her temper, the types & number of objects she has thrown, the number of times she hit her target, & the fallout of living with this type of temper. Again, it wouldn’t be the standard fare of Secretary of State, but it would scarcely be dull.

Then there’s her Enemies List, & a slew of people she dislikes—in some cases virulently. How about some details on those issues? I bet it would be scintillating.

When it comes to actual SoS stuff, she’s probably fairly limited. She just doesn’t come across as all that smart. I know a meme was created that she is very bright, but when & how has this ever played out? She seemed out of her depth in the SoS capacity, & probably still has no idea what she should/could have accomplished. I.e.: when she says she had no idea Islamic extremists could resurge in Iraq, sadly she was spot on.

Probably the best she could do to spice up that part of the book would be to hire a devil’s advocate. Iow, a critic to confront her, in short but unbridled polemic, about how, where & why she failed. Her flailing, defensive answers wouldn’t be all that interesting, but at least readers would see her confronting the actual issues, as opposed to simply relating endless micro-details that not even her greatest fans claim are engaging.

Just some thoughts. Certainly unrealistic, since Hillary! would hurl herself out of the highest window in Bill’s Presidential Library & Massage Parlor before she’d take even a tiny, calculated risk, but some thoughts anyway. Fwiw.