Sans-Culotte, I’m sure both Obama and Hillary’s books received bulk sales, especially the latter. I think Obama’s book legitimately sold as there was interest in him.
Hillary’s most recent book was a publishing disaster. It reached No. 1, mostly because the distribution was massive. Most of them were ultimately returned to the publisher and shredded in massive amounts. It sold 85,000 in the first week. By week 10 it was selling fewer than 10,000 copies. It had an initial print run of 1,000,000. To sell only 250,000 books on an initial print run of 1,000,000 probably should have gotten someone at S&S fired.
Typo, it should read by week 10 Hillary’s book was selling fewer than 5,000 copies a week.