Blast from the past: Hillary Clinton Book Breaks Sales Record

People's Daily Online ^ | June 11, 2003 | Wire services

[SmokingJoe]

United States former first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton's memoir about her eight years of White House life sold more copies in its first day of release than any other nonfiction book in Barnes & Noble's history, the company said. United States former first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton's memoir about her eight years of White House life sold more copies in its first day of release than any other nonfiction book in Barnes & Noble's history, the company said.

"More than 40,000 books were sold in 24 hours; it's a tremendous amount of books," said Carolyn Brown, director of communications at Barnes & Noble, the world's largest book seller. -/-/-/-/- Publisher Simon & Schuster ordered 1 million copies for its first printing, an unusually high number for a work of political nonfiction. The publisher has agreed to pay 8 million US dollars for the book.

After seeing the turnout on Monday, the publisher decided to print another 50,000 copies, spokeswoman Victoria Meyer said.

[SmokingJoe]

A priceless quote at the bottom of the article:

“Hillary Clinton denied that she has the ambition to run for US president. “I have no intention of running for president,” HillaryClinton said in an interview with Time magazine in which excerpts from the book were published Monday.” :)

Back on topic, we know that Sarah Plain’s book will have a bigger first printing (1.5 million) than Hilary's book did (1 million).
It's virtually certain that Sarah's book will beat Hilary's 24 hours sales of 40,000 at Barnes and Noble, and 200,000 total first day sales(according to Simon & Schuster). I think Sarah going to smash those records(if they still the records for a political book), into pieces.
Anyone have any idea what the life to date sales are for Hilary's book, Living History ?

[SmokingJoe]

In a related matter, it would appear that Hilary's gargantuan $8 million advance, may have resulted in up to 75 people at Simon & Schuster losing their jobs. I bet the liberal media never made much of that issue.

“Here’s the evidence. The advance paid to an author represents an advance on royalties based on the number of books expected to sell. The author’s royalty on hardcover books is 10 to 15 percent of the sale price. The publisher gets the rest. This is industry standard. So, if Clinton’s contract gave her 15 percent–the top rate–then she gets $4.20 for every $28 hardcover book sold. At a million copies sold, Clinton’s cut is $4,200,000. At a million and a half copies sold, her cut is $6,300,000–still way short of the $8 million advance.

Last reports are that Living History sold 1.2 million copies, and bookstores are reporting that sales in the last couple weeks have dropped way off. It seems she could sell a million and a half by year’s end–but not much more. There’s really no way they could have expected it to, which means that Simon & Schuster effectively altered the ratio of publisher/author earnings for Clinton. Hillary didn’t get just 15 percent, the maximum percentage that authors earn in royalties; she got a million to a million and a half more than the 15 percent would have yielded.”
http://www.nypress.com/article-8015-did-hillary-get-75-publishing-professionals-fired.html

[4rcane]

hillary got 8 million yet palin only got 7 million

[Semper Mark]

I wonder how many copies Barnes & Noble bought...

[SmokingJoe]

The evidence would suggest that the publishers barely made their money back on the $8 million advance they gave Hilary, and that was the fastest selling political book ever at the time. That means that publishers are going to be a bit more stingy with the money on the next big political books that come along, like Sarah's.
In any case, I think Sarah's book will far outsell Hilary's, so she is going to end up making even more money than the $8 million that Hilary made.

[ClearCase_guy]

I remember seeing lots and lots of Hillary’s book in the remainder bins. They printed a great many, but they actually had trouble selling them.

[DemonDeac]

Prominent dems are probably buying up thousands to drive up numbers. That happens sometimes when it comes to the books of politicians.

[OldMissileer]

How many of the sales were bulk sales made by unions and liberal organizations with close political ties to the Clintons?

[OBXWanderer]

United States former first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton's memoir about her eight years of White House life

A primer on how to throw an ashtray...in ten easy lessons, or three hard ones??

I am only assuming that...I did not purchase one.

[98ZJ USMC]

Yeah, I wonder how many copies Soros is sittin’ on?

[killermosquito]

And the unions, especially the teacher’s union.

[pikkel]

Sarah Palin is absolutely the smartest and most talented and dynamic figure in American politics today. I think that Her future will bode well for this Country. I wish that we could dismiss Congress, dismiss the courts, get rid of government and just unite behind Her. I doubt that an election would even be important, but we could have one if the majority want one. (Just kidding!)

Some say that She might not have been ready back in 2008, but to those people I say, YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE AND YOU ARE WRONG AND YOU KNOW HOW WRONG YOU ARE AND WERE WRONG. So, how does it feel to be so utterly wrong? You don't need to embarrass yourself by answering that question.

[SirFishalot]

Probably using them as text books for their classes.

[SunkenCiv]

Gee, funny that this came up again.