Stores Cashing in on Palin Mania
By Don | November 21, 2009
Book stores that managed to snag a visit by Sarah Palin have been cashing in on the former governor's start power.
From the Politico
Each of the stores that Sarah Palin has lined up for her book tour has just three hours with the former Alaska governor in-store to try and move the minimum of 2,500 copies of “Going Rogue” publisher HarperCollins mandates they must order in exchange for her visit. So far, that hasn’t proven difficult.
With 29 announced stops, that adds up to at least 72,500 copies of her book - just from the stores she is visiting.
During the tour, Palin is not being staffed by Meg Stapleton, her longtime trusted right hand. Instead, she is accompanied everywhere by Tina Andreadis of HarperCollins. Neither Andreadis nor her assistant responded to requests for comment on book sales, but the publishing house has announced that it sold 300,000 of the 1.5 million copies printed on the first day of sales.
Ben Vore, the manager of Joseph-Beth Booksellers in Cincinnati, said he got Palin’s visit on Friday officially confirmed just two weeks ago, and has been plotting how best to capitalize on the opportunity ever since.
Vore decided to order the minimum, getting his delivery of 2,500 books over the weekend. The store immediately started selling vouchers for a copy of “Going Rogue” that came with a free ticket to get into the book signing. The vouchers sold out three days ago,
As at the other events POLITICO has visited so far, Palin signed books for exactly 1,000 people before packing it up and returning to her bus, with a photo of the book on the outside, and heading to the next stop. Most people arrive holding at least two or three books, meaning that Palin is signing about a thousand copies an hour – or a book every 3.6 seconds.
With an hour left in Palin’s book signing session at the Joseph-Beth Booksellers on Friday, Vore had already sold 2,000 copies of the book, and expected to move the rest over the next few days.
To accommodate all the traffic, bookstores have had to close down to regular business, turning away walk-in customers every few minutes. Those who stop by only to be rebuffed frequently react with a combination of annoyance and amusement, not sure what to make of having their day’s plans altered by Palin.
Despite turning away some regulars, Vore said his store was “selling much more than usual” during the few hours Palin sat at a lightly colored wood table in the center of the store, only putting her signing pen down when a child approached so that she could ask for his or her name and age.
Joseph-Beth sold almost nothing else during the visit, but Vore said that Palin-related merchandise was flying off the shelves, including McCain-Palin playing cards and other books on the 2008 presidential campaign.
Patrick Meab, the manager of the Meijer’s grocery store where Palin signed books in Fort Wayne on Thursday, said his store ordered 3,000 copies ”Going Rogue” and had sold 2,200 by the time she left the store. In just the three hours she was in the store, Meab said, Meijer’s sold 1,200 books.
“The event was awesome,” he said. “I have not seen anyone else move merchandise like that.”
If there was ever any doubt that Sarah Palin is a GOP rock star this book tour is easily disproving it while driving the liberals batty at the same time.
Post #2473
7 Comments | Post a Comment
Boy -this must really annoy -and frighten the liberals!
Palin has plenty of time to build her warchest, become a foreign policy expert and lay the necessary foundations for a great run at the presidency if she wishes.
There is no other conservative leader on the horizon -she has the playing field all to herself and is handling it masterfully.
THIS TIME -with competent advisors she can take it all the way.
I am not a particular fan -but neither am I at all an Obama fan -and I think Sarah will become a credible alternative. That is something the US really needs right now -I think we will all agree!
Jock Williams Yogi 13
Palin is shallow and an intellectual lightweight. All the media coverage she is now getting should merely set her up for the inevitable fall that comes when her lack of intellectual heft becomes apparent once again.
Is this the best the Republican party can do? It’s really sad that the party of Lincoln and Taft and Eisenhower has fallen to these low levels.
“Intellectual ability” is a subject the media uses to manipulate the public. What ideas does a candidate have, what is their approach to implementing them, who do they surround themselves with to get the job done, and are they running a dishonest treasonous agenda or one with moral character that recognizes citizens own the government? Those are the questions that matter to real Americans, are they not?
Palin stacks up very well on those points, which may be precisely why she is so vilified by the marxist/socialist con-artist criminals in the media and DC. (Those aren’t labels or accusations, just accurate descriptions that the media loaths to use.)
Meanwhile, Emperor O has spent $2M on his invisible clothing of constitutional authority, has willfully collaborated to illegally steal billions from citizens, works to undermine both national security and national sovereignty, and has surrounded himself with immoral and treasonous rabble who have not been vetted or approved by congress and are accountable to no-one but the Emperor (or King, if you prefer). And that’s the abbreviated version of the short list.
Most Americans are coming to hate who King O actually IS, and what he DOES, and the criminals and terrorists that he EMPOWERS.
In contrast, most Americans find a lot to admire and inspire in Palin. Her book-signing tour just underlines that fact very nicely.
Analyst,
I’m tempted to frame your post #4 to hang up on my wall.
Very well put!
If the same leftists who attempt to downplay Palin’s intelligence are also implying that Obama possesses superior intelligence, then they only reveal a sort of mass delusion among themselves.
An inability to articulate himself along with his lack of stature during last years presidential debates was painful to watch. As much as I don’t like Hillary Clinton, she would bury Obama any day of the week in debating and speaking forums, in general.
He is way out of his league and without the undying propping up he enjoys from the media, would be the awkward, uncharismatic nothing that he is.
Watching Obama attempt to act ‘presidential’ is like watching a thin, gawky adolescent from a Western state attempt to wear his rugged daddy’s cowboy hat, only to have the hat fall halfway down his face.
Palin has plenty of time to build her warchest, become a foreign policy expert and lay the necessary foundations for a great run at the presidency if she wishes.
Analyst accuses the media of using “Intellectual ability” to manipulate the public. Is he suggesting that intellectual ability doesn’t matter? Or perhaps he believes intellectual ability is a negative trait for a politician, a handicap. After all, poor old dumb George W. Bush, who was proud that he was a “C-student” at his legacy Ivy League college Yale, was proud of his lack of intellectual ability. W got us into an unnecessary war that left us with a multi-billion dollar deficit and he brought about the “great recession” of 2008. Is a lack of intellectual ability a good thing, Analyst? Republicans seem to prefer a lack of intellectual ability, after all, it leaves office holders more easily manipulated by the defense contractors, the religious right, and the Wall Street robber barons who really own the Republican party.
Sarah Palin is a nit-wit. She’s dumb enough to go on national television and insist she’s an expert on Russia because she lives in Alaska and can practically see Russia across the Bering Straight. This shows she not only lacks intellectual ability, but that she is also so dumb and arrogant that she is used to being surrounded by people who accept such views and don’t challenge her. And there is no way she wrote anything. The book was ghosted by writers hired by the Republican money men. They see in Palin a female W, a person with no intellectual heft at all, one they can manipulate to their benefit and to the detriment of America.
November 23 at 9:19 am | #1 | Link
Wow. I really think that THIS IS THE REAL STIMULUS PACKAGE that small stores and their workers have been waiting for.
My brother (19 yr old) just got his bonus yesterday and he’s expecting additional income (extended hours of work) for the very excellent sales in the last 3 days.
Thanks a lot, Sarah.