In the last 15 months, the publishing industry has seen an orgy of anti-Bush books, and people are buying them. Since George Bush delivered his second inaugural address, only one conservative, pro-war book has graced PW's hardcover nonfiction list—Bernard Goldberg's 100 People Who Are Screwing Up America—while from the anti-Bush camp, a handful of books, from the likes of Jon Stewart, Al Franken, James Risen and Kevin
Phillips—have all made the list. That's a far cry from the runup to Operation Iraqi Freedom in late 2002, when the hot Christmas books were Bob Woodward's Bush at War and Rudy Giuliani's Leadership. With critiques of the Bush administration policies now coming from all sides, what does it mean for America's four avowedly conservative imprints, three of which were founded around the time Bush declared, "Mission Accomplished"?
The president's plummeting poll numbers (his approval rating has dropped from 70% on May 1, 2003, to a current low of 38% in the latest Washington Post—ABC News poll) presents a dilemma for longtime conservative standard-bearer Regnery, and the three news kids on the block, Crown Forum, Sentinel and Threshold. With books critical of Bush such hot commodities (Phillips's American Theocracy and Cobra II, by Michael R. Gordon and Gen. Bernard Trainor, are #8 and #10, respectively, on PW's list this week), conservative imprints may well be wondering how things will shake out for them. Americans are flocking to anti-Bush books not only from the left but from former Reagan officials like Bruce Bartlett (Impostor) and retired military guys like Gen. Trainor, who are publishing with imprints that are something other than red. What's a conservative imprint to do when conservative dissent turns selfward and the conservative message is under attack?
Hold fast, according to Louise Burke, who, as executive v-p/publisher of Pocket Books, oversees Threshold. "I don't believe that people abandon their political beliefs due to poll numbers," she says. Threshold was founded a year ago as a Simon & Schuster imprint, with D.C. insider Mary Matalin at the helm. Burke says, "When your guy is down, it simply energizes the base and paves the way for new ideas and commentary. I leave the Bush bashing to my colleagues, who can't seem to get enough of it." Threshold launched the imprint in January with Think by Michael R. LeGault and will follow it up in May with a familiar Washington name, Mary Cheney's Now It's My Turn: A Daughter's Chronicle of Political Life.
Another option might be to jump on the bandwagon—or appear to. Regnery, founded just after WWII, has the wisdom of years and the confidence of a conservative imprint that has been at the center of conservative discourse ever since. "We've already published books that are critical of President Bush," declares Regnery's president and publisher, Marji Ross. "Earlier this year, we published Congressman J.D. Hayworth's book, Whatever It Takes, which argues for a much more aggressive approach to illegal immigration than the current White House position. Last year, we published Newt Gingrich's Winning the Future, which proposed solutions to the problems facing our country that were in several cases very different from the direction of the president." Obviously, these books are mild in their criticisms of Republican policies, and Ross admits as much. "By and large, our market supports the president and the principles he shares with them." However, Regnery remains Regnery, as a couple of its red-meat spring titles attest: Strategery: How George W. Bush Is Defeating Terrorists, Outwitting Democrats, and Confounding the Mainstream Media by Bill Sammon and The Party of Death: The Democrats, the Media, the Courts, and the Disregard for Human Life by Ramesh Ponnuru.
A third option might be waffling, or in gambling lingo, hedging your bet. Steve Ross (no relation to Marji Ross), publisher of Crown Forum, a Random House imprint founded three years ago that got out of the gate fast with Treason, a bestselling Ann Coulter book (500,000+ sold), cites publishing flexibility as a virtue of his arrangement at Crown. "One of the delights of my work here is I can publish the [kind of] book that would have the more liberal readership, like Impostor [by Bartlett]. I believe it is not conservatives but liberals probably buying that book. If we published that book, it would have been as a Crown book, books that are more focused on a liberal leadership." But he didn't publish that book: Doubleday did, under Adam Bellow. And it's Doubleday that this month publishes Ronald Kessler's biography of Laura Bush as well as an evisceration of Jack Abramoff and Tom Delay in The K Street Gang by Matthew Continetti.
The third newish conservative imprint, Sentinel, sits under the Penguin corporate umbrella. Like Crown Forum, it was established in 2003, publishing its first New York Timesbestseller, A Matter of Character, a fawning portrait of the First Lady's husband by none other than Ronald Kessler. Bernadette Malone, Sentinel's senior editor, who has published such liberal-bashing titles as The Truth About Hillaryby Ed Klein, knows why conservative publishing has been so successful. "The best conservative publishing is not shy about controversy," she says. "Data on demographics is notoriously hard to find in publishing. But our impression is the Sentinel readership is largely conservative. Many of them feel President Bush is not conservative enough!"
When Crown Forum and Sentinel were launched, there were many who thought it was a cynical attempt by New York houses to cash in on an ascendant conservative market formerly served only by Regnery and a scattering of specialty publishers. Others considered it a smart publishing move. Three years down the road (and three years into the war in Iraq), it is indeed a test of character for these imprints. Crown Forum's Steve Ross remains upbeat: "I personally think there's an enormous readership that will remain hungry for quite a while, a wide enough readership that all of the conservative-oriented acquisitions and imprints can continue to experience ongoing success."
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In the Beginning...
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The conservative alternative to the perceived New York liberal bias in publishing goes all the way back to Chicago in 1947, when the man with the plan, the founding father of modern conservative publishing, Henry Regnery, started what is today Regnery. "In many ways, we created the category," says Marji Ross, "to serve a market that wasn't being served at all by the big New York publishers. We built a foundation of trust and respect within our marketplace. Regnery is one of the few publishers that is a true brand in the industry. Love us or hate us, you know what we are, and the point of view we're coming from."
For more than half a century, Regnery enjoyed total hegemony publishing conservative titles. When the new imprints were born, they all acknowledged Regnery's role and example. "I noticed that they had such significant success," says Steve Ross, "and I realized that nobody in any of the mainstream houses was addressing this readership." Ross even allows himself a little New York bashing as proof of his conservative chops: "We almost all live and work in Manhattan, and Manhattan, as far as I'm concerned, should be a separate republic or country. I thought it was important that we be publishing for the whole country."
Mary Matalin, wife of Clinton war room operative James Carville—and last seen as Dick Cheney's mouthpiece after his hunting accident—is now editor-in-chief of Threshold. "The success of conservative publishing," she states, "is directly attributable to the growing number of conservative readers, which, of course, is the result of the ascendancy and prevalence of conservative ideas." Of course. In due course, we will find out if Matalin's timing and aim are better than the Veep's.
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Keeping Liberals on the Run
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It's not that liberals haven't had their share of bestsellers over the years. In fact, liberals are more than competitive when Al Franken lines up against Bill O'Reilly, Michael Moore takes on Sean Hannity, or Molly Ivins faces off against Ann Coulter. But when it comes to bench strength, the the liberals peter out with the likes of Paul Begalia and Joe Conason, while the right responds with 100,000+—selling authors such as Bernard Goldberg, Mark R. Levin, Peter Schweizer and Dick Morris. Why? When we talk about red states vs. blue states, we are talking almost a 50-50 split. So, if everything is so close politically in the country, why do conservative books far outsell liberal ones?
"The only people who seem surprised at this success," says Threshold's Louise Burke, "are those who don't agree with the conservative philosophy." Burke then gets to the crux of the matter: "We must realize that the audience for these books has spoken at the cash register, creating a need for more publishers to enter into this arena."
Adam Bellow, executive editor-at-large at Doubleday, doesn't have a "named" imprint, but has been publishing conservative books since his days at the Free Press in 1989. This spring he has stirred the conservative pot and drawn ire for publishing Bruce Bartlett's Impostor, and may have more conservative blood on his hands with the publication of The K Street Gang by Weekly Standard writer Continetti. "Thirty years of liberal dominance in politics, the academy and the media has turned liberalism into a reactionary movement living off the fumes of its past glories. The culture war is a struggle between left and right for the soul of the moderate middle."
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Out-Foxed?
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Ground zero in the culture war is the Fox Network. "It's absolutely essential," says Crown Forum's Steve Ross. "Fox, and the whole talk radio revolution that Rush Limbaugh helped spark, has been enormously successful. The conservative authors we have with a media-friendly or mediagenic message—they can do literally hundreds of talk radio interviews and it's back-to-back."
"The challenge for publishers has been utilizing the media to publicize conservative books," says Regnery's Marji Ross. "So the advent of Fox News and conservative talk radio and the explosion of voices on the Internet—Matt Drudge and all the rest—has given us a very powerful tool for promoting our books and our authors."
"The rise of right-wing media," echoes Doubleday's Adam Bellow, "has indeed become a powerful factor in the success of conservative books—we used to rely exclusively," he says wryly, "on attacks by the New York Times."
The question remains: Has the tide turned? Regnery's Marji Ross is sticking to her guns and staying above the question, at least as it concerns book publishing. "We don't spend a lot of time with book people," she says. "We hang out with political conservatives, which is one more strength and advantage we have over our competitors—we actually likeour readers."
Adam Bellow, though, adds a note of caution: "I agree that the conservative imprints will have a problem once the partisan intensity of the Bush years is behind us. They should pray that Hillary Clinton gets elected."
