Posted on 07/27/2003 3:48:18 PM PDT by Forgiven_Sinner
Big publishers cash in as right-wing polemics sell in their thousands
Two large American publishers are to launch off-shoots to capitalise on the latest literary phenomenon gripping the United States: the right-wing diatribe. Hillary Clinton's autobiography leads this month's US bestseller lists, but over the last year it has been books written from the opposite end of the political spectrum - many of them accusing her husband of everything from treason to destroying the American way of life - which have gripped the imagination of the book-buying public.
Among the most successful has been Treason: Liberal Treachery From the Cold War to the War on Terrorism by newspaper columnist Ann Coulter, which calls all Democrats traitors and urges the rehabilitation of Red-baiting Senator Joe McCarthy, who led a witch hunt against liberals in the Fifties.
Despite being widely ridiculed for its tendentious logic - even by right-wing reviewers - Treason has sold more than 500,000 copies in just three weeks.
Coulter's sales have been matched by those of The Savage Nation by Michael Savage, a right-wing talk-show host who was recently fired from a TV programme for telling a gay caller: 'You should go and get Aids and die, you pig.'
Like Treason, the premise of The Savage Nation is that all of America's ills are caused by liberalism, Democrat politicians and the liberal media.
Other conservative authors such as Sean Hannity and Bill O'Reilly, who both host shows on Rupert Murdoch's Fox News Channel, have racked up hundreds of thousands of sales, prompting Crown Books and Penguin to launch new imprints catering to Americans' appetite for anti-liberal polemics.
'The centre of culture has moved to the Right,' said Steve Ross, vice-president of Crown. 'Conservatives are a vast and historically under-served readership. There is a significant marketing opportunity there and a civic responsibility.'
Adrian Zackheim, already a New York publishing veteran at 27 after bringing out Margaret Thatcher's books in the US, is heading Penguin's attempt to exploit the trend.
'We have several imprints that serve the Left, but none that serves people who are coming from the Right, and we feel that section of the market needs to be served; especially at a time when, post-11 September, there has been an upsurge in interest in politics among all Americans, whatever their persuasion,' said Zackheim.
'People are in a new place. It has dawned on them that politics is not just about the difference between vanilla and vanilla, that politics matters, that their lives depend on it: 11 September brought that home to everyone.'
Best-selling books that espouse right-wing views are not a new phenomenon. In 1960 Barry Goldwater's Conscience of a Conservative was a surprise bestseller, and it provided the starting point for his disastrous 1964 presidential campaign.
Zackheim insists, however, that the new upsurge in sales of conservative books is unprecedented. Like most observers of the publishing scene, he attributes it to the spread of right-wing views by radio talk show hosts such as Rush Limbaugh, who has 15 million listeners a day, and the Fox News Network, whose slogan is 'fair and balanced' yet is anything but.
The scandals surrounding Bill Clinton's presidency were the springboard for Regnery, a small Washington company which has been the leader in publishing conservative polemics since the mid-Nineties. It was then that it brought out Unlimited Access, the memoirs of an FBI agent who claimed that he saw the former President's alleged infidelities.
Marji Ross, Regnery's president, says its books sell because they make a splash. 'We tried to make our marketing about news in the book, not about the publication of the book.'
Another popular explanation for the success of Coulter and company is simply that their views chime with those of the American people. Brad Miner, a former literary editor of the National Review who left recently to head an offshoot of the Book of the Month Club catering to right-wing readers, cites a recent opinion poll in which 41 per cent of Americans said they considered themselves conservatives, as opposed to 18 per cent who thought they were liberals.
'The main concern of the public has been the obvious bias of the mainstream media and the under-representation of the prevailing ethos in the country,' Miner said.
'These books are popular because they attack that bias and the attitudes of the elites who have helped sustain that bias and have long treated those fundamental American values with contempt.'
The Right stuff
Among the right-wing theorists selling books in large numbers are:
Ann Coulter Treason: Liberal Treachery from the Cold War to the War on Terrorism Sales: 510,000
Sean Hannity Let Freedom Ring: Winning the War of Liberty Over Liberalism Sales: 350,000
Mona Charen Useful Idiots: How Liberals Got It Wrong in the Cold War and Still Blame America First Sales: 150,000
Michael Savage The Savage Nation: Saving America From the Liberal Assault on Our Borders, Language and Culture Sales: 450,000
Where?
"Lawrence Donegan in San Francisco." I guess it's still #1 somewhere larry donginagain.
FMCDH
And identifying Fox News as "Rupert Murdoch's" is "fair and balanced" Mr. Lawrenth?
Bleedin' poofter.
A liberal uses "tendentious" to mean the other guy. They would never admit that this applies to BBC's reporting.
Or books by Michael Moore, Molly Ivins, Alterman, Chomsky, et al...
By use of this term it's clear that this joker never read Slander. To paraphrase: every best selling conservative book is a "suprise best seller"
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.