All those well-folded dollar bills from his Social Security check your grandfather mailed to Donald Trump ended up in a strange place. The Republican National Committee (RNC) doled out hundreds of thousands of dollars in just one month to buy up Donald Trump Jr.’s second “book” and Fox News commentator Sean Hannity’s signed “priority access” books that went out for donations of $75.00.
The Federal Election Commission (FEC) showed the RNC’s August expenditure report included $405,404 for “donor mementos” from Barnes & Noble, booksamillion.com, and Porchlight Books.
The RNC pre-ordered the Hannity books in bulk from Porchlight for a cool $119,250 and none from Don Jr.
The committee paid almost $100,000 for the president’s eldest son’s first book Triggered, in November. That pushed it up to the bestseller lists. An RNC spokesperson told The New York Times that right after the first fundraising email went out this summer:
‘We haven’t made a large bulk purchase, but are ordering copies to keep up with demand. Each book is sold to an individual who supports the Republican Party.’
While most of the country thought junior was running the family business, he apparently was just hanging around the house with nothing to do. Then, he had the bright idea of a science fiction book about ‘Biden’s half century (sic) of being a swamp monster.” One moment please, make that a nonfiction book:
‘While I had no plans for a book this year, I was stuck indoors like the rest of the nation during the pandemic. I decided to highlight Biden’s half century of being a swamp monster, since the media wouldn’t do it.’
Founder of the nonfiction imprint PublicAffairs Peter Osnos commented on Jr.’s book to the Times:
‘This is a political pamphlet, not a book. It hasn’t been subjected to any measure of quality or accuracy.’
Junior’s first book went out under the imprint of Hachette Books, Center Street. He self-published the second time around The RNC released a statement quoting Don Jr., according to The Salon:
‘While I was offered a generous book deal by my previous publishers, I turned it down and decided to self-publish. The RNC was able to raise almost a million dollars from their fundraising campaign with my first book, Triggered. I look forward to helping them fundraise once again for the benefit of the Republican Party.’
Top campaign finance authority Brett Kappel said that by self-publishing an author gives up the “distribution, marketing, and publicity” infrastructure provided by top publishers. On the other hand, the author could keep “up to 70 percent in royalties:”
‘And he’s got the RNC taking care of some of that promotion up front.’
Sergio Gor collaborated with Junior. He multi-tasked the jobs of literary agent, content consultation, and project managing “everything from the editing to the print run.” When he is not doing that, Gor is the Chief of Staff of the Trump Victory Finance Committee.
Literary agent Dystel said:
‘It’s a big job to self-publish, and it takes your attention away from other things.’
It looks as if the RNC bought the president’s son’s book directly from him. It did not even go on sale until August 30, well after the RNC convention. If the committee waited until September to purchase the book in bulk, that expenditure would not be available until right before the election.
Another possibility is that the RNC gave Amazon a “preorder promise.” The committee’s August FEC report indicated a remarkable big purchase of $126,423 from Amazon on August 10 for “office supplies.”
Hannitiy’s book went into bookstores, but Don Junior’s will not. Instead, he has it marketed on his website for $29.99 and on Amazon. His girlfriend and senior campaign adviser Kimberly Guilfoyle narrated the audiobook.
Twitter world went nuts, and here are some favorite responses:
Featured image is a screenshot via YouTube.
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