The Hollywood Reporter was half-right. Last week, the entertainment trade mag reported that two new critical Sarah Palin books, Joe McGinniss’s The Rogue and Levi Johnston’s Deer in the Headlights, had “gotten a lukewarm response from the buying public since their release on Tuesday.” The basis for the story: Wan sales numbers on Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble.
Now that the books have been out for a week, we have a better idea of how they’re selling. According to the New York Times’s books reporter Julie Bosman, The Rogue will debut at #10 on the paper’s nonfiction list, making it McGinniss’s first bestseller in more than a decade. According to Nielsen BookScan, McGinniss moved 6,000 copies in the first week.
Johnston’s book didn’t fare as well. It sold 1,000 copies, according to Nielsen. That could be a function of the utter lack of news in the book, but it’s proof of something fairly new: the Palin industry has been fading. According to Nielsen, Bristol Palin’s memoir Not Afraid of Life has moved 14,000 units since its release three months ago. Blind Allegiance to Sarah Palin, a tell-all from a former staffer, has moved 17,000.
