Romney's "Best-Seller" Is A Fraud

Mitt Romney has been given a lot of credit for not charging a speaking fee when scheduled to make a speech.   He has also been given credit for writing a best-selling book -- No Apology: The Case for American Greatness (pictured above).   Unfortunately, it looks like Romney may well be getting credit that he does not deserve.

While Romney many times doesn't ask for cash payments for speaking like some other Republican presidential hopefuls (Palin wants $75,000 to $100,000 for a speaking engagement), that doesn't mean he doesn't expect remuneration.   Ben Smith of politico has learned that Romney asks organizations he agrees to speak at to buy a bulk purchase of his newest book -- and the purchase would cost the organization from $25,000 to $50,000 (which would be thousands of books considering the bulk purchase discount of 40%).

This doesn't put Romney in the Palin class of speaking fees, but it does mean he gets some cash for making a speech.   He just gets the money through the back door in the form of book royalties.   And it gives him another advantage, since it catapaults his book up to best-seller status.   It is a fraudulent best-seller status (since some of the organizations are stuck with books they can't even give away, let alone sell), but it still makes him look like a popular author who has something to say that people want to read.

And just making the best-seller charts is guaranteed to sell some more books, since some people will be fooled into thinking the book is popular and worth buying (and some more royalty money goes into Romney's pocket).   This is some very sneaky stuff.

But Romney is not the only right-winger who has done this kind of thing to make it look like a book is a bonafide best-seller.   Sarah Palin's book was jumped up to the best-seller list by bulk sales to conservative organizations.   In fact, Palin's own PAC (which was supposed to be giving money to conservative candidates) made a large bulk order of her book.

I'd like to think these shenanigans aren't fooling anyone, but there are a lot of pretty stupid people around that'll take pride in their right-wing heroes' best-seller status.