Politicians And Book Sales

George W. Bush's book, Decision Points, has now been released and I must admit I'm curious as to how well the book will sell.   The publisher has printed 1.5 million copies -- the same number of copies that were printed (in the first printing) for Bill Clinton.   Clinton's book sold 900,000 copies in the first week of release.   Will Bush do that well?   I doubt it, but you can never tell what the American public will do.

There may be a whole lot of people buying the book just to see what reasons Bush claims for the terrible decisions he made while in office.   Or his book could sell as poorly as his father's book did (less than a 100,000 copies).   Frankly, I'm just wondering where the bookstores will put the book -- in the comedy section or the fiction section.   I think either would be appropriate.

The book's release does bring up the question of just how well politicians sell when they write a book.   The Daily Beast had the same thought so they checked the totals with Nielsen BookScan (which tracks all retail sales except for books sold at Wal-Mart and Sam's Club).   Here are the best-selling politicians since 2001 according to Nielsen BookScan and the total number of books they have sold:

1. Barack Obama...............4,650,000

2. Jimmy Carter...............2,218,000

3. Bill Clinton...............1,899,000

4. Al Franken...............1,777,000

5. Hillary Clinton...............1,491,000

6. Sarah Palin...............1,455,000

7. Newt Gingrich...............1,098,000

8. Al Gore...............913,000

9. Ted Kennedy...............651,000

10. John McCain...............614,000

11. Mike Huckabee...............419,000

12. Ron Paul...............281,000

13. Jesse Ventura...............130,000

14. Mitt Romney...............112,000

15. Jim Webb...............111,000

16. George H.W. Bush...............84,000

17. Bill Bradley...............69,000

18. Joe Biden...............49,000

19. Byron Dorgan...............26,000

20. Dick Armey...............24,000

I thought it was interesting that the top five bestselling politicians (and seven of the top ten) were liberals.   In addition, much of Palin's sales came from bulk sales to conservative groups and magazines (who gave the books away).   Romney also required groups who wanted him to speak to make a bulk purchase of his book of $50,000 and up.   But these rather creative efforts at "selling" books still couldn't catapult them into the top five.