This Gives Me Hope: Conservative book sales have suddenly plummeted.

[kpete]

Buzzfeed reports that conservative book sales have suddenly plummeted.

This pattern continues as you scan the works of recent and prospective Republican presidential candidates. According to one knowledgeable source, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker received an even larger advance than Pawlenty’s, and Bookscan has his 2013 book Unintimidated selling around 16,000 copies. Sen. Rand Paul’s latest, Government Bullies, has barely cracked 10,000 sold; and despite spending months in the 2012 GOP primaries, Rick Santorum’s book about the founding fathers, American Patriots, sold just 6,538 copies. Perhaps most surprising, Immigration Wars, co-authored by Jeb Bush, the former Florida governor who consistently polls in the top tier of the Republican 2016 field, sold just 4,599 copies.

http://www.buzzfeed.com/mckaycoppins/killing-conservative-books-the-shocking-end-of-a-publishing

[Ilsa]

1. Their books are junk, and everyone knows it. nt

[rhett o rick]

11. I dont think that makes a difference. In the past the books were bought by the thousands

buy corporations and individuals looking to buy the candidate. With Citizens United, now they can give the money directly.

[MADem]

15. They were bought cheap at a few bucks each, and given away as favors at rubber chicken fundraisers.

The waiters at these stupid events with woodstoves and fireplaces would go around after the party ended, pick up the books that were left behind, and use them as firestarters.

Only the morons who were fixated on nitwits like Coulter would actually pay full price for those screeds.

[rhett o rick]

16. This method allowed Rupert Murdoch to give Gingwitch a lot of money for "helping" him get

his USofA citizenship. Gingwitch writes a book and Murdoch buys them all (well a lot).

[MADem]

17. So many trees had to die, for nothing!!! nt

[Cha]

25. "Government Bullies" by Rand Paul.. the biggest fucking bully around.

"10, 000 copies" ROFL

[cui bono]

21. They also did it so the book would show up on the NYT best seller list.

Always doing something sneaky those guys.

[Scuba]

23. Bingo. Walker's campaign will buy all his books, give them to the suckers that support him.

It's just another way of scamming.

[eppur_se_muova]

41. I've long insisted they should be priced by the cord.

In colder climates, that would really move them along.

[MADem]

42. Now that's a DUzy! nt

[yeoman6987]

30. Good!

I wonder how progressive books are selling. Those nasty conservatives always brag that they sell more books than the great progressives. I never really investigated such statements because they lie all the time. It would be great if progressives sell books ten times more than conservatives. It seems possible with their dismal sales.

[rock]

48. "They lie all the time"

True, although I prefer to state it as, "They deceive all the time." Strictly speaking, if they told lies all the time, we'd know what the truth was. By balancing lies with truths, we get no information at all from them.

[closeupready]

56. Heh. You sure got that right, Ilsa.

[villager]

2. Shit, I've sold more books than those assholes

That, at least, gives me hope!

[Kber]

3. The problem is that they are targeted to an audiance

That doesn't really love reading.

[Adam051188]

4. +1

they could have john stossel read them out loud on fox. just an idea.

[Kber]

6. There you go! Always thinking!

[Adam051188]

18. it would actually work better if they had megyn kelly read it with a low cut shirt on

ratings would skyrocket

name of show..."megyn kelly's book learnin time"

[Cirque du So-What]

5. Isn't this tripe generally bulk-purchased?

It's generally bought by various RW media outlets, then given away to subscribers. What a prize!

[hollysmom]

7. I always thought they were bulk bought until

I worked in B&N at Christmas and saw a lot of old men buy Bill O'Reilly's book for other old white men. Of curse they had the books piled up by the door, inthe same place where htey put other television books, like Jon Stewart.

[JI7]

10. yeah, i think freerepublic or some other shit did that with Palins book

and they just gave them away to people

[Cirque du So-What]

12. This whole thing makes me wonder...

are FreekRepubliKKK and their ilk falling on hard times financially? Make no mistake, the RW has lots of money to spread around, but it's still a finite resource.

[JI7]

13. there were a few things that happened

it got ugly during the primary and maybe even before. most of them didn't want romney . i think even a little before this there were a lot of people kicked off .

the guy who owns the site had surgery and i think both his legs are amputated now . i think they needed money for medical bills.

the website is the same crap it was in the 90s or whenever they first started.

obama is no longer going to be up for re-election so they don't have the "beat the black guy during election" thing anymore.

they think much of the republican leadership like boehner is a liberal .

[yeoman6987]

31. Thank you for taking one for the team

I couldn't imagine going over there. I would probably just blow my top. I hope you take a shower after lurking over there. Thank you again for keeping us informed on the snake pit.

[icymist]

8. Ah! The dumbing down of the education system is finally starting to show.

The young GOP don't cope with big words and all. Why they're still trying to figure out 'there, they're, and their'!

[JI7]

9. the only ones i would expect them to buy from these would be Rand Paul and maybe Santorum

even if book sales were high i wouldn't expect the ones from scott walker and pawlenty to do well.

[Takket]

14. That's because most righties are illiterate. But...

But... and this is a big but... if your base is illiterate... you spread you lies on TV rather than depending on books......

http://www.deadline.com/2014/02/february-cable-news-numbers-fnc-logs-146th-consecutive-win-cnn-tumbles-msnbc-hangs-on/

[magical thyme]

19. maybe they should try coloring books...

something closer to the iq and emotional intelligence of their audience.

[cui bono]

22. They already do that!

Ted Cruz to the Future!



There’s Now A Coloring Book To Teach Your Children To Love Ted Cruz
http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2013/12/09/3036431/good-news-tea-party-parents-coloring-book-teach-children-love-ted-cruz/

http://thecolbertreport.cc.com/videos/18yj36/-ted-cruz-to-the-future-

"People who bought this book also bought a Crayola 64 pack of white crayons."



Haha... Amazon reviews are great:
http://www.amazon.com/Ted-Cruz-Future-Coloring-Activity/dp/1619530953/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1395460474&sr=8-1&keywords=ted+cruz+coloring+book

But wait.... there's more!!!






To be fair there's a Libertarian one and an Occupy one now too.

[magical thyme]

35. "Going Rouge" was created by a DUer...

I remember those days well.

"People who bought this book also bought a Crayola 64 pack of white crayons."

[cui bono]

54. Really? That's funny.

Yeah, if you didn't watch that Colbert piece you should. It's filled with good stuff, as usual.

[Tom Ripley]

20. The landfills must be at capacity

[Cha]

24. "Rand Paul's latest Government Bullies".. are you fucking kidding me! Rand Paul and

his freaking libertarians.. the biggest fucking bullies around. "10, 000 sold"

[sendero]

26. My pet theory....

.... is pretty simple. For 30+ years the Republican party has claimed they are the party of prosperity. And the economy didn't really make liars out of them, until about 6 years ago.

Now when the economy crashed six years ago everyone didn't immediately blame it on Republicans. No, most people incorrectly assumed that we were in another "recession" that would last 18-24 months and then it would be business as usual.

Of course, nothing could be further from the truth. And not only did the Republican core policies of lower taxes and more deregulation figure strongly as a cause of the collapse, the Republicans' response to the collapse is to offer more of the same.

It's taken time but Americans are waking up to the total fraud that is the Republican economic miracle. Americans are realizing that it is only a miracle for the already-rich, and they are getting tired of it.

Now if only the the Democrats would GIVE THEM A REASON to go to the polls, we could make some real progress.

[politicman]

27. IMO....

One of the contributing factors to not being able to have a congress dominated by Democrats in my opinion is the scorn heaped upon people who believe in faith.

Many of us, whether we live in America, or Australia as I do, have religious beliefs, BUT we still believe in the fairness and empathy that progressive ideas espouse.

But the party is slowly being taken over by those that look at us religious progressives as some sort of fundamentalists and heap scorn on us, even though it hasn't happened with me, many people who want to back progressive ideas have no choice but to side with conservatives as they are faced with abandoning their religious beliefs or siding with those that don't treat them as idiots.

My advice to progressives, is embrace people like me and don't make us feel unwelcome in your party simply because we don't and will never ascribe to the theories of evolution and the big bang.

Anyway, still hope we kick the conservatives asses, both in America and here in Australia.

[Demit]

34. "many people who want to back progressive ideas have no choice but to side with conservatives" ?

I think perhaps you should reexamine your choices.

Maybe you were just being hyperbolic for effect. Even so, you're going to deliberately vote for conservatives, spurning what you say are your real core beliefs, because your feelings are hurt? Sorry, that's weird.

[politicman]

36. its not that our feeling are hurt, its that we dont want to decide between our religous beliefs and.

the after life we believe in.

First let me just say that I live in Australia where we have our own problems with conservatives.

But I personally will never vote for conservatives, but believe me when I say that many religious minded folk here(and in the U.S) that believe in as higher being are being faced with the choice of either electing a progressive government that will eventually force evolution education on our kids or conservatives who we don't agree with but at least won't force evolution education on us.

You may think our feelings are hurt, but its more than that, we believe in a higher being and we believe in an after life that we think will be a million times better than this life, so if you give us a choice (I wont give up my ideology but many have) between choosing a system that we think will deprive our kids of the after life we believe in or one that lets us still believe in the after life, many will take the latter option.

Even if it means tha we have to stomach stupid conservative policies now., do you understand what I am saying?

[Demit]

43. You are describing a pretty Manichean worldview.

If you feel that things are so necessarily either-or, black or white, then it sounds to me that you are, at heart, a conservative. You say that you aren't, personally...but that you speak for others (on two continents!) who could not abide being "forced" to have evolution taught in schools, because being taught evolution would deprive you of believing in an afterlife. Or even deprive you of the afterlife altogether (how would it do that?)

I was raised Catholic and was taught in Catholic schools, which saw no conflict in believing in evolution and God both. What a shame for you that your religion can't. What a shame that you think education will endanger your beliefs. What a fragile religion that must be.

[politicman]

44. please provide answers on what benefits to life we will lose for not believing in evoltuion

You think I and my children will be missing out on something if we don't believe that we came from apes millions of years ago.


I want the best education for my children, I want them to be doctors that treat and even possibly come up with medicines that sure diseases, I want my children to be scientists that come up with improvements that make our daily lives better, I want my children to learn everything that can help them and other in this life, YET I fail to see how not believing that we evolved from apes millions of years ago will affect all those things.

Can you enlighten me on what my children will be missing out on if they don't believe in evolution? please make sure to give answers that will affect mine, or my children's lives in the present time and the future?

Thanks.

[Demit]

46. You are rather changing the subject.

First you said "if you give us a choice between choosing a system that we think will deprive our kids of the after life we believe in or one that lets us still believe in the after life, many will take the latter option."

Which says quite clearly that being taught evolution in school will deprive you of an afterlife. I asked you how that is possible, but you didn't answer.

You also think a school system that teaches evolution wouldn't "let" you believe in an afterlife. The only way I see that being possible is by your own agency. By you letting the science destroy your belief. And that tells me that your faith must not be very strong.

Millions of believers have survived the teaching of evolution with their faith intact. I'm not here to defend science to you. I'm wondering about the strength of a faith that has to be shielded from science & learning.

[politicman]

50. i will answer directly for you then

It won't deprive me of an after life, it will deprive my children of the after life I believe in.

Because education is the thing that's shapes the thinking of children, if they were taught evolution which I don't believe in then they will not have the same strong beliefs I do, thus depriving them of an after life according to our religion.

You may think that teaching evolution in school has its benefits, I quite clearly just see it as an attempt to slowly destroy religious beliefs generation by generation.

Science is not just limited to million of years ago, science can be taught and used in our current lives, for the purpose of enriching our lives. Coming up with a theory about how humans supposedly evolved from apes millions of years ago does nothing to enrich our lives in the present, all it does is to attempt to eradicate religion through schools, one generation at a time, and I would rather not have a government with a policy to teach my children something that is clearly against my beliefs.

[Egnever]

60. I disagree

I dont think the two are mutually exclusive. I think they can coexist. I can see the big bang as an act of god quite easily and also recognize that with the lack of science available at the time most religious tomes were created there could be no other explanation than the ones put forward in them.

Science is science and you cant separate evolution from science. You either believe in science or you dont. Religion is faith not science and faith requires only belief not faith. I find it incredibly easy to ascribe the big bang to God while not denying evolution exists.

You can see evolution in your every day life the idea that you can disbelieve it i find astounding. One need only look at dogs to see evolution at work.

Having said all that I despise organized religion, mostly because of its refusal to adjust to reality or even to outright deny reality because it feels threatened by it. When most holy books were written there was little or no science they did the best with what they understood. I find nothing wrong with adjusting as new things are learned. Clearly we no longer stone people as the bible suggests. Why can we move on from things like that and still believe but not accept science and still believe?

Science builds on itself and the idea that you can teach science without evolution i find to be quite perplexing. It would be like trying to teach algebra without division in my mind.

[Demit]

61. You don't trust your children to keep their faith. That is so sad.

It's sad that your religion is so shaky you think it won't withstand being tested. It's sad that you are afraid that public schools will be the only thing that shapes your children's thinking, that it will negate your influence as a parent. Again, as if it's an either/or. As if there can't be two sources that shape what a child learns.

It's sad that you don't WANT your children to find their own way. It's sad that you think you can control them so that they won't. Do you even have children?

This is what I find so sad about organized religion. The doubt it has about its own strength, and the resulting need it has to overcontrol.

[Egnever]

57. I agree

The intolerance on the left can be every bit as ugly as it is on the right at times.

[Arugula Latte]

58. Oh bullshit. When did a Democratic politician say anything against religion or "faith"?

Poor, poor persecuted Christians!

And evolution is a theory like "gravity" is a theory. It's a basic cornerstone of science. Just because you don't like it doesn't make it untrue. As Neil de Grasse said, "The good thing about science is that it's true whether or not you believe in it."

[Arugula Latte]

59. Politicman -- If you don't believe in evolution how do you explain bacteria becoming

resistant to antibiotics?

[Eleanors38]

28. Guess everyone is stocked up on kindling.

[Nanjing to Seoul]

29. How often can you write the same lies until they just get tediously repetitive?

Honestly, that's all RW books are. One big lie, lots of little lies, miserable research techniques a a writing style that would make a baboon feel intelligent.

[yeoman6987]

32. You have a way with words

I just love your post. 100 percent true, but I was chuckling reading it. You are so right.

[sendero]

33. And the lies stop working...

.... when EVERYONE can see the elephant in the room, the failing economy, the economy being what Republicans have been winning on for 30 years IMHO.

[Paladin]

37. I heard that Limbaugh's children's books are current best-sellers.

And no, I'm not joking about Limbaugh's children's books. Wish I were........

[Ilsa]

38. Pigman has kids books out there?

My goddess, I wouldn't want him influencing my kids, no matter what my political beliefs were. He's a misogynistic druggie. Not a good influence.

[Paladin]

39. One about the Revolutionary War, the other about the Pilgrims.

Because everybody wants their children exposed to the works of a drug-abusing, serial divorcing, hate merchant.......

[randome]

40. Another sign of hope: Drudge's meltdown.

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/drudge-individual-mandate-liberty-tax

I think it means something, I'm just not certain what, yet.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]A ton of bricks, a ton of feathers, it's still gonna hurt.[/center][/font][hr]

[MADem]

45. No mas pantalones!!!!

There's just one problem: Americans don't pay a penalty for not having health insurance until they file their 2014 taxes -- in 2015. So either Drudge is lying or he paid a huge penalty a year earlier than he needed to.

[craigmatic]

47. This could be bad news because nobody bought them before except these think tanks and rich donors.

This could mean they're spending more of their money on the race for congress.

[SoCalDem]

49. I'm guessing that most of those books were "bought" (in bulk)

by think tanks & organizations that gave them out as "party-favors"... Many of those groups have morphed into more exotic entities now and probably do not operate as they once did.

SCOTUS pretty much said that anyone could raise as much money as they wanted...without all the elaborate scheming they once had to do.

[kwassa]

51. Most conservatives don't read anything. That's the problem.

They just tune into Fox, and swallow whatever tripe is being marketed.

[lostincalifornia]

52. At least in the recent past conservative groups would buy those books in bulk, which made the sales

Look better than they were, and then give the books out at their events or to acknowledge a donation

[louis-t]

53. Maybe the price of toilet paper finally went down.

[jmowreader]

55. The RW think tanks have found better places to spend their money

"Best selling author Ann Coulter" sounds better than "Most Loathed Person of the 21st Century Ann Coulter." But now the dollar stores are pleading with the Koch Brothers, "quit sending these books, they never sell and we pay by the ton for garbage service." Now they've established Ann as a Best Selling Author and can stick to important-to-them things like getting guns on Idaho college campuses.