"Freshly Ground Black People" error boosts book sales

By GottaLaff

This is disgusting. Book sales have actually increased (although the number of books sold is tiny, but still...) since this happened:

Penguin Group Australia accidentally published copies of the Pasta Bible containing an unfortunate spell check error. A recipe calling for "salt and freshly ground black pepper" actually read "salt and freshly ground black people." The company is destroying and reprinting 7,000 copies of the book, but not recalling ones that have already hit bookstores. According to the company's head of publishing, Bob Sessions, it was an honest mistake.

That was then. This is now:

Since news of the misprint broke, sales have increased nearly four-fold, according to TheBookseller.com.

Sales increased, not just curiosity. People spent their hard-earned money on a book with that title.

Who is buying those books? And why? That was rhetorical.

Bulk Orders Boosted Romney's Book

Seriously, I would have never thought that people would really want to read Palin's book more. I'm still thinking that there was some hanky panky in her sales though. Via Taegan-

Mitt Romney's No Apology tops the New York Times bestseller list this week. However, a "dagger" symbol next to the book signifies that "some bookstores report receiving bulk orders." Romney's book actually has two daggers.

In contrast, Sarah Palin's Going Rogue never received a dagger next to its listing while a top the bestseller list in week 1, week 2, week 3, week 4, week 5 or week 6.

Mitt Romney Hopes for 10,000 at Book Signing

Talk about setting yourself up for disappointment! Via Taegan-

Mitt Romney apparently is looking for Palin-like numbers when promoting his forthcoming book, No Apology: The Case for America's Greatness.

Mitt Romney Central says one of Romney's first book signings will take place on March 13, 2010 at the University of Utah and "expects 10,000 attendees, all of which will receive a signed copy of the new book."

Palin lands on top of NY Times bestseller list

Wow, I am seriously stunned. It doesn't even have the dagger notation (A dagger (†) indicates that some bookstores report receiving bulk orders.) as Huckabees's and Becks books do.

(CNN) - In the wake of a high-profile two week publicity tour, Sarah Palin's memoir "Going Rogue: An American Life" has landed at the top of the New York Times bestseller list.

The former Alaska governor's book takes over the top spot previously held by tennis legend Andre Agassi's tell-all, "Open."

(snip)

The Associated Press reported last week Palin sold 700,000 copies of her memoir in its first week, a number that far surpasses most political books. But it falls short of the more than 900,000 copies sold of Bill Clinton's 2004 memoir "My Life" during its debut week.

"Sarah Palin has one of the lamest online efforts of any national political figure.”

By GottaLaff

"Lacking" seems to be a key word on so many levels when describing Barbie McLipSchmutz:

[...] [S]everal GOP new-media strategists believe she has significant room for improvement when it comes to her web presence. [...]

[S]ome Republican new-media strategists are questioning whether or not her online effort can convert the energy and enthusiasm surrounding her tour into political action.

"Significant room for improvement" is such an understatement, and I'm not talkin' web presence here. I've rarely witnessed such a vast need for improvement. If there were a contest for that, Barbie would win.

Florida-based Republican new-media consultant Jordan Raynor has a thing or two to say about this:

But Raynor, who claimed to be an “agnostic” regarding Palin, said that she has struggled to make a mark on web platforms other than Facebook.

"What I don't like about as far as an online strategy is that she puts most of her eggs in the Facebook basket. She should be extending her online cachet into other strategy,” he said.

Raynor and other consultants claim that her e-mail list of supporters could be larger considering her political celebrity.

Maybe she quit in the middle of making an e-mail list. She's been known to do that.

Others, such as Alabama-based GOP new-media consultant Jeff Vreeland, lamented Palin’s decision to create a new Twitter account instead of changing the name of her gubernatorial account to keep her follower base of over 150,000, though it’s not clear that she was allowed to keep her old one.

“It was just a complete failure for the people who support her,” Vreeland, who said he “still [has] questions” about Palin before he could consider voting for her should she run for office.

Here's my favorite quote of the article:

Senate Republican Conference online communications director Sean Hackbarth lobbed this charge at Palin’s online presence this week: “I'm sorry, Sarah #Palin has one of the lamest online efforts of any national political figure.”

Let's see now. So far we have "lame", "significant room for improvement", "lacking", and "failure". Now that's what I call accurate reporting.

Let's see if we can find one final quote to end on. Why, here's one now!

Soren Dayton, a new-media consultant who has worked on Capitol Hill and on Sen. John McCain’s presidential campaign:

"She not converting her online energy for anything other than book sales right now”

And the All About Me Tour continues...

VIDEO: Fox apologizes for bogus Palin crowd claims

By GottaLaff

Yesterday Paddy posted a video of ClusterFox's usual misleading "reporting", this time Palin crowd shot, as opposed to say, a tea party crowd shot.

But today is a brand spanking shiny new day:



They should really start considering inserting some semblance of truth into their fair and balanced news. That would be novel.

Palin helps RGA get discount on 'Going Rogue'

Oh how terribly charitable of her!! I'm sure it has nothing to do with artificially bumping up her books sales numbers, now would it?

(CNN) - Sarah Palin helped the Republican Governors Association get a discount on "several thousand" copies of her new book so the group can use them as a fundraising tool, RGA chairman Haley Barbour said Tuesday.

(snip)

"We purchased them at a great discount, at the publisher's price, God bless her," Barbour said during a conference call with reporters ahead of the RGA's annual conference in Austin, Texas.

"I suspect we are going to raise a whole lot of money with this," Barbour predicted. "Hopefully we'll have to re-order."

Ann Coulter's Books Sales Slipping?

Oh schadenfreude how I love thee. Wonder if she has enough cash to keep her in slutty little black cocktail dresses and Visine?

(CNN) — Is Ann Coulter losing her mojo when it comes to selling books?

The conservative commentator, whose previous tomes have flown of the bookshelves, isn't having quite as good luck with her latest hardback, "Guilty: Liberal 'Victims' and Their Assault on America."

According to Portfolio Magazine, just over 100,000 copies of the book have sold during its two months on the market. While that number far surpasses most politically themed books, its sales to date rank far below those of other Coulter polemics.

Portfolio reports 2006's "Godless: The Church of Liberalism," sold 279,100 copies in hardcover, 2003's "Treason: Liberal Treachery from the Cold War to the War on Terror," sold 396,600 hardcover copies, and 2002's "Slander: Liberal Lies About the American Right," sold 333,100 copies and an additional 108,300 in paperback.