Thursday, August 26, 2004

Book Sales, this is how Conservatives Do It

From Publisher's Weekly, via JuliusBlog:

Several store managers at Barnes & Noble and Borders spent the weekend fending off complaints from customers that the two chains were refusing to sell the book, which attempts to debunk Kerry's claim's about his war record. Meanwhile, independent and chain booksellers say they've been burned by bulk orders for Unfit and another liberal-blasting title, Michael Moore is a Big Fat Idiot (Regan Books), made under a bogus name....

She calls the phone called "creepy and irritating," adding, "It's both men and women calling. And they sound very orchestrated, like people are being told what to say. They want to know how many books I have on order and whether I will have stacks in the store. When I said that Unfit was on backorder, they wanted to know our distributor. That's pretty sophisticated for a layperson to ask about. I deeply resent being told what to carry. I'm not supported by tax money, this is my store."...


This, of course, is how Conservatives often get their books on the best-seller lists. It must really piss off a P.J. O'Rourke or George Will, who whether you agree with them or not, generally get their books on the best-seller list the old-fashioned way, by getting people to buy them individually. Meanwhile, these guys watch utter hacks like O'Reilly, Coulter, Limbaugh, and now this excrement get up on the sales charts because of an orchestrated campaign to pump up sales, or buy bulk orders by conservative interest groups.

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