THE POTUS TELL-ALLS SELL

BY: Ramona Duoba

Since Donald Trump’s inauguration in 2017, there has been a steady stream of books about POTUS and an uptick in sales of exposés. The Trump tell-alls have been unleashed by journalists, government officials, Oval Office insiders, and family members. “No matter what your political position, there’s really no doubt that the strong feelings around the Trump administration have pushed book sales in a way we’ve never seen before in the political arena,” said Kristen McLean, the executive director of business development at NPD Books. Mclean told The New York Times, “The volume of best-selling titles is really remarkable.”

Within a year of Trump’s presidency, Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House by journalist Michael Wolff became a bestseller, and it has been non-stop ever since. Bob Woodward’s book Fear, released in 2018, sold more than 2 million copies, and in September 2020, Woodward followed-up with Rage, which now sits at the top of The New York Times best-selling list. Who can forget Omarosa Manigault Newman? She was a participant in season one of Trump’s reality show, The Apprentice and in 2017 joined the White House staff as an aide. She was fired, then released her tell-all book Unhinged.  Anthony Scaramucci, “The Mooch” was fired after just 11 days as the White House communications director, but that didn’t stop him from getting a book deal. He’s a Trump critic now, but his book Trump, The Blue Collar President was a favorable nod to the President.   Some may have an ax to grind, and others may want to redeem their reputations like former F.B.I. Director James Comey author of A Higher Loyalty and National Security Adviser John Bolton with his The Room Where It Happened.  There was also the 2019  exposé  A Warning, anonymously authored by someone described as “a senior Trump administration official.” It is a follow-up to an anonymous op-ed published by The New York Times in September 2018.

There have been plenty of home runs by authors who have rallied around the President: Gregg Jarrett, author of The Russian Hoax: The Illicit Scheme to Clear Hillary Clinton and Frame Donald Trump; Edward Klein, All Out War: The Plot to Destroy Trump; David Horowitz, BLITZ: Trump will Smash the Left and Win; and Alan Dershowitz, The Case Against Impeaching Trump and the recently released book by veteran business journalist Lou Dobbs, The Trump Century, How Our President Changed the Course of History Forever. 

According to NPD Bookscan, a market research company, there have been more than 1,200 titles published about President Trump in the last four years in the United States.

The volume of books about the President is twice what we saw during Barack Obama’s first term. Trump sells and family insider and niece, Mary L. Trump, caused fury with her tell-all Too Much and Never Enough. The book sold more than 1.35 million copies in the first week and is now an international bestseller.  Jonathan Karp, head of Simon & Schuster, said, “Mary Trump’s memoir has transcended the usual ceiling for political books to reach a larger audience of people who want to read stories about unusual families.” Karp added, “We knew Too Much and Never Enough would make news and offer fascinating psychological insights into the President.”

In 2018, President Trump’s lawyer and “fixer” Michael Cohen, pleaded guilty to nine counts of federal crimes, including lying to Congress and campaign finance violations. Cohen’s book Disloyal remains on The New York Times best-selling list since its release in September.

Political books typically have a short life span. They sell fast, and before you know it, they’re discounted and end up on the bargain shelf.  But, since Trump is driving the news cycle and the public desire for salacious information about POTUS continues, there’s no surprise behind this quick pace of publishing.