The Wasilla wingnut is still playing the long con:
Sarah Palin has been using her political action committee to buy up thousands of copies of her book, “Going Rogue,” in order to mail copies of the memoir to her donors, newly filed campaign records show.
The former Alaska governor and 2008 Republican vice presidential candidate had her political organization spend more than $63,000 on what her reports describe as “books for fundraising donor fulfillment.” The payments went to Harper Collins, her publisher, and in some instances to HSP Direct, a Virginia-based direct mail fundraising firm that serves a number of well-known conservative politicians and pundits.
I guess this is her version of trickle down.
jacy
“Grifter” is still the best one-word description for Palin ever put forth. You don’t even need anything else.
Cassidy
Someone wants to pretend to be a NYT’s bestseller.
Ash Can
Isn’t this SOP for books written by wingnuts?
slag
I’m surprised she didn’t just send the bill to the State of Alaska.
Splitting Image
So she’s basically scamming her PAC for the royalty money?
I’m shocked, I say shocked. No one could have predicted something like this.
eemom
“books for fundraising donor fulfillment.”
I’ll bet Rich Lowry gets plenty of, er, “fulfillment” from his copy.
MikeJ
@jacy:
If she ever released an album of 1 one hundredth the brilliance of “Crappin You Negative” I’d faint.
Waynski
I suppose it’s legal, but as always with her, pretty slimey.
Mark S.
Most of these PACs are just fancy ways to launder money. I remember reading several months ago about a PAC fronted by Michael Reagan that only spent like 2% of its funds on candidates.
Osprey
There’s a joke here somewhere comparing this to Erick Erickson son of Erick telling his legion of fuckwits to buy things through his Amazon link (like salt to Olympia Snowe).
This is probably the worst insult to somebody’s intelligence I can think of, getting a copy of this book.
SFW, first paragraph is worth your effort.
margaretandhelen.wordpress.com/2009/12/07/going-rogue-without-a-condom/
Bubblegum Tate
@Ash Can:
The bulk buys and all that are SOP, yeah. I think the wrinkle here is that she’s using her own PAC to buy her own book. Next up: The publicity tour brought to you by Bristol’s new PR firm!
All in the game indeed.
Paul
. . . and then the PAC will sell them in Nashville. . .
Bubblegum Tate
Oh, and as long as we’re referencing The Wire here, isn’t Sarah Palin essentially Clay Davis? She just uses teabagging and “patriotism” instead of the race card.
DaveiLA
What other groups have inflated their numbers???
holysmoke.org/cos/inflated.htm
Punchy
This was my question. At first, I just thought she wanted to pad her sales, for pride’s sake. But then I realized the royalties that are involved….
That’s like using raising boob cancer money, then giving it to your customers before they tip it back over to you on the stripper’s pole.
eric k
Bubblegum,
But Clay Davis was actually competent at it:-)
freelancer
@Bubblegum Tate:
“You Beeeeeeeetcha!”
PurpleGirl
If the PAC is buying them from HarperCollins, they are probably getting a discounted price which means no royalty on the copies. She received an upfront advance which is a draw against royalties. Authors who buy copies get a discount but give up royalties on those copies. This has been standard for ages.
If they are buying from stores, it could mean that Harper didn’t print a large number of copies and may not want to go back to print.
In any case, the books now draw against the advance they gave her when she signed the contract to write the book(s). Remember Mary Cheney got a million dollar advance and the book tanked.
Bubblegum Tate
@eric k:
Good point. Plus, Clay Davis never quit to go chase money.
@freelancer:
Sheeeeeeeeeeiiiiiit!
kay
Very funny post.
I love that Joe Leiberman is the only other politician they could find who has done this, and even he didn’t take the royalties.
Mike in NC
Like all of the other wingnut stuff pumped out by Regnery and company, Palin’s book will be available in hardcover in a couple of months for $4.98 through Hamilton Books and other warehouses. But teabaggers are welcome to throw away their money to buy it now at full price.
me
Sure, but it’s the books that are the key. If she fails to recoup the advance on this book, there’s less of a chance that she’ll get a big advance on her next.
DonkeyKong
Soon, a copy will be in every motel room.
Bill
Isn’t this the same trick the scientologists use to keep Dianetics up in the rankings?
Davis X. Machina
Nah, copies of Dianetics are purchased, chopped and then blown into the walls of cheap spec-built apartment complexes as insulation.
PurpleGirl
@me:
Yes, that’s right. If the books don’t sell it will be harder for her to get a contract for another one. But the copies she buys herself don’t count in the calculations — that’s why they might be trying to buy in bookstores so as to hide the purchases as bulk transactions, although bulk buys do get counted for best seller status (unfortunately). ETA: That may sound strange but publishing is arcane and strange, things may not seem logical to those outside the marketing department.
schrodinger's cat
@DonkeyKong: After all it is the wingnut bible.
trollhattan
My dreams of a recurring Caribou Barbie role on “The Riches” has been crushed. It’s been cancelled.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Riches
She’s a natural traveller, doncha know.
gypsy howell
Nah, I’ll bet you anything the PAC is paying full price. Just one more way to get her paws on that PAC money.
debbie
@ Ash Can:
It’s SOP for quite a few authors, wingnutty or not. They get a special rate, and these purchases are not included in sales when royalties are calculated.
All kinds of authors do this. Some sell their books when they make appearances, others just give them away. Back in the 1970s, my gyno was handing out copies of a book he’d just written to every patient.
CalD
Yep. And her contributors are the ones getting trickled on. They probably like it though.
nutellaontoast
The article says quite plainly that she bought them form her publisher. I know it’s impossible to give our enemies the benefit of the doubt, but I’m gonna guess that she didn’t take royalties.
Sleeper
@Bill:
Not sure about Dianetics, but the Church did engage in massive book recycling for Hubbard’s final works of openly acknowledged fiction, Battlefield Earth and the Mission Earth decalogy. The Church ordered each of their orgs and missions to have their members go into bookstores and ask for the books nonstop, then to purchase multiple copies when they arrived. Supposedly, the books were then given back to the Church, who shipped them back out to Bridge Publications (the Church’s publishing arm) who sent them right back out to bookstores. There were numerous reports of Hubbard books found in stores with stickers from other bookstores still on them.
The ironic part is that it’s more than likely that at least a few, and perhaps most, of these novels weren’t even written by Hubbard. He was pretty much a walking corpse the last few years of his life.
Sleeper
As for whether or not Palin gets royalties from this particular scheme or not, the fact is that she’s still using PAC funds she was supposed to be spending to support other candidates to promote herself. And not even promoting her political agenda, but promoting her celebrity and bank account. It’s startling that so many can’t see through this charlatan, no matter how openly self-serving she gets.
Nylund
Let’s not forget that Bristol incorporated herself as a consultant so no doubt some of that PAC money is going to pay Bristol as well, so its not like she’s using ALL the money to funnel the money to herself through the book…some of it is surely through her daughter!
Tommy T
@Bill:
Pretty much.
lermanet.com/latimes/la90-5.html
It’s actually the first thing I thought of when I heard she was buying up her own books.
Bubblegum Tate
@Sleeper:
Starbursts are a helluva drug.