Scott Brown did it. Rand Paul did it. And now Christine O’Donnell has done it. The trend of Tea Party candidates—winners and losers—landing book deals would seem to indicate that publishers are hot for titles by these much-covered politicians. Editors at conservative imprints, however, say books by Tea Party politicians are less attractive than books about the movement itself.
Although it’s not known how much money Paul and O’Donnell got for their proposals—he inked a deal with Hachette’s Center Street last week, and her deal with St. Martin’s Press was announced today—Brown landed a reported seven-figure advance from HarperCollins after winning an upset victory in the Senate race in Massachusetts last winter (thanks in large part to Tea Party support). These three, though, are the exceptions to the rule, say sources PW talked to, and some were even surprised O’Donnell landed a deal at all.
Marji Ross, president and publisher of Regnery, said her house has been approached by a number of Tea Party candidates about whether a book would be a good idea, and most of them were told that it was not. Ross said that although people often think of political memoirs as successes—see Bill Clinton’s My Life, Sarah Palin’s Going Rogue, George W. Bush’s recent Decision Points—most of them fail. “Books by politicians usually have disappointing sales,” Ross said. “The examples that immediately come to mind are exceptions to the rule.” She added that books are a great platform for a candidate or politician, but often a financial gamble for publishers. And books by senators and congressmen—Paul and Brown both won Senate seats, and O’Donnell (whose SMP book is scheduled for August 2011) lost the Senate race in Delaware—are, she said, often tougher to sell than those by higher-ranking politicos.
Although O’Donnell drummed up an excessive amount of press during her campaign—she famously ran a commercial in which she declared she was not a witch—insiders wonder about what kind of readers O’Donnell can draw. “We’ve gotten many proposals from politicians who didn’t win,” Ross said. “But as difficult as it is [to publish a book by] a sitting politician, it’s doubly hard to do so for someone who lost.”
Sean Desmond, a senior editor at Crown who also acquires for the Random House division's conservative imprint Crown Forum, said that he has also been seing a lot of book proposals by “brand name and affiliate groups” in the Tea Party. He thinks it’s still a bit too early to gauge their selling power. “It’s hard to know who will come to the fore and how to publish this group as it evolves during the 2012 election cycle,” he said. “Now that the protest vote has been registered, what comes next is the key question.”
There’s no denying that those who espouse Tea Party ideals can become major bestsellers. But not every Tea Party winner (or loser) will be Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck, or even Ron Paul (Rand’s father, who had a surprise bestseller with 2008’s The Manifesto from Grand Central).
Adrian Zackheim, president and publisher of Penguin’s Sentinel imprint, named in-house authors like Mike Huckabee as proof that the Tea Party reach goes beyond Palin and Beck. (Huckabee has a new book coming out in Feburary from Sentinel called A Simple Government.) Still, he said he feels some hesitation when it comes to striking deals. “In terms of new authors who explicitly and proudly carry the banner of the Tea Party, we've seen several proposals over the past few months,” Zackheim said. “But Sentinel hasn't aggressively pursued any of them yet. It remains to be seen which ones are just enjoying short-term popularity in 2010, and which ones will stay on the national stage for years to come.”
Ross said that what she’s hearing from the trade is that Tea Party books have not sold very well. She thinks people who espouse Tea Party beliefs don’t necessarily want to read about Tea Party politicians, but, rather, the issues being pushed by the movement. Therefore she’s more interested in books about topics like limited government and spending than titles that simply come with the name of a recognizable Tea Party figure. And, for the most part, this means business as usual. “The kinds of issues that mobilized the Tea Party are pretty core conservative issues,” she said. “Those are issues near and dear to our heart at Regnery, as a longtime conservative publisher, so in a sense it’s not a big change.”
