And so another book tour launches.
How can anyone not be conflicted over this guy. He sunk Clinton’s campaign by talking about emails 11 days before the election, yet his firing was the first step in the process to investigate ignorant moron who looks more guilty every day of high crimes and misdemeanors, collusion with an unfriendly foreign government, obstruction of justice, self dealing, etc. Thanks to @darrtown for saying this with no words.
@26degreesrising Who reads these books? There are Warren’s books, Bernie’s books, Brazile’s book, Sasse’s and Flake’s, and of course the woman I admire so much but won’t read a book she’s written.
Comey has little or nothing to be admired. Yes, by doing the bare minumum in investigating the assaulter fraud in the white house, he got himself fired. We are in far better hands with Mueller, one of the best twists of fate in this strange national scenario.
These books for the most part do not warrant a read. Maybe historically they will be useful in few revealing facts from the main players. Beyond that, I do not plan to read. “What Happened” is different, voice of central figure in historic event and I’m an obsessive admirer. Beyond the Russia/Trump factor, Hillary addresses sexist/misogyny in politics & our culture. No one suffered from it more than she and this is the first time she addresses it head on.
He seems to be like many of us, a mostly good person that has tragic flaws. I believe he believes in the law, but through a combination of arrogance, hubris, and worrying too much about his own public image, he allowed an absolutely devastating miscarriage of justice to take place.
I believe he is a tragic figure to be pitied.
One has to wonder how much was known of Trump’s issues at the time Comey contributed to the sinking of Clinton, and if known, why he didn’t come out with “both sides” and let the people decide???
I generally don’t like political figure’s book, there seems to be a self-serving quality about them though I think and I hope Mrs. Clinton found some catharsis in writing hers. Worth reading because it is timeless is President Obama’s Dreams From My Father. where we learned how unlikely a candidate for president he was and managed to become a singular figure on the American political stage because of enduring brilliance, heart and hope. Yes, hope.
I don’t read these kinds of book either. Any time I’ve tried (usually after someone has given me one as a Christmas present), they’ve been so unspeakably badly written and self-serving, I’ve not gotten past a couple of pages.
But someone must read them, and think they make great presents. The publishers gobble them up like candy corn.
@ryanp
Comey and his boss Lynch dithered and fretted and eventually were hopelessly overwhelmed by the revelations as they first began to come out of Russian about hacking and the characters involved, Guccifer et al. So they took no steps for fear of looking partisan, esp. Lynch who was also being accused of plotting with Bill C. on a tarmac
@26degreesrising I think I have a fairly eclectic taste in what I read, but pol’s memoirs don’t make the cut. Except for Dreams From My Father.
BTW Brazile’s book is at #3 best seller in US Government titles at amazon.com. Go figure.
Never went that way either. I was tempted but I liked Obama too much to risk disliking his writing.
You will in fact I believe enjoy his style of writing. It’s not completely polished, has some earmarks of a less than professional writer, but it’s a remarkable story of a man who was raised by an exceptional woman with the only father figure in his life a white man from Kansas who later moved to Hawaii. I marvel that the president came out of this byzantine journey with his head screwed on right.
I’d like to see the state-by-state breakdown of sales. I gotta feeling it’s red-hot in red states…
This alone will move books though the fact is Clinton did nothing wrong in her handling and fund raising for the DNC. She virtually owned it. But mentions of “crimes” always works.
Only by laying bare the missteps, miscalculations, and crimes of 2016, Brazile contends, will Americans be able to salvage their democracy
I also wonder who reads those things, and didn’t find any statistics on who. But I did find something on ‘how much’. Five-thirty-eight looked at how far people got in listening to those books, so it’s a limited metric. Most people don’t even get half way through these books. From the article:
First, you can look at the percentage of the book the average listener played (the second column from the right). The average reader made it through three-quarters of “Faith of My Fathers” by John McCain. That’s ridiculously high. Marco Rubio, Scott Walker and Mike Huckabee all had average completion percentages, between 65 and 70 percent, for “American Dreams,” “Unintimidated,” and “God, Guns, Grits, and Gravy,” respectively. The books that don’t do so well by this measure come from both sides of the aisle, but they do have one thing in common: They’re looooong.
…
It turns out that people are willing to listen to Bush, Clinton and Cruz speak uninterrupted for many more hours than I expected. Seriously, the fact that George W. Bush is not only an accomplished author but perhaps the most successful author in his field (at least by one metric) is not a notion I would have even entertained before I started digging into this. Well done, Dubs.
There were a few articles that came out in 2015 and 2016 on the sales of these books. Publishers hope to sign a candidate that becomes a great politician and thus get future sales. Publishing a memoir seems to be mostly a political vehicle now for meeting the public, gauging interest, and possibly quasi money laundering. They don’t have to count funds spent on a book tour as “campaigning”.
Based on the $122,000+ that Cruz’s campaign paid HarperCollins, and considering the $27.99 retail price and the typical author discount of 50%, the Cruz campaign likely purchased 8,000-10,000 copies of A Time For Truth. That’s a hefty profit for HarperCollins and a huge profit for Cruz if the campaign is able to sell those copies at $85 a pop. In essence, the campaign is taking money from Cruz’s donors to buy books, many of which they will sell right back to those donors at a massive markup.
Yet, despite the ethical gray area, this may just be how campaigns are expected to fund themselves. Says CNN contributor and syndicated conservative columnist S.E. Cupp: “The idea of public service certainly takes a hit when lining one’s own pockets becomes at the very least a side-job of running for President. But as a book author and a capitalist, I fail to see the issue.”
One more reason for Campaign Finance Reform!
It’s my understanding that a healthy percentage of political figures’ books sales are from bulk orders made by political organizations. This both helps drive their sales up into the bestseller lists – which is in itself a form of marketing for both the book and the author – and it represents a de facto form of payment for the public figure, for whatever reason that organization may have.
I know this is a big reason why we always see the right-wing propagandists’ books making those lists and featured prominently in Barnes and Nobles.
Also: Old people read a lot.
That there’s a big gotcha littlegirlblue. I know little to nothing about the DNC or this argument, but for this book to jump to top three on the list like this, I think Ms Brazile owes a lot to the pi fights on leftie sights.
However, other than enriching the former DNC leader, I see little benefit bemoaning the past election. Your caddie retort, however LGB is excellent.
There it is in a nutshell.
Oh, you still have a first class ticket to hell, sanctimonious asshole.