I agree to a certain degree with Steve (who has forgotten more about the publishing industry than I have ever known) that the Palin book will be a best seller right out of the chute. Where I part company with him is the notion that those sales will be driven only by the true believers. Sarah Palin has achieved that unique brand of American freak show singularity by becoming equal parts Paris Hilton, William Hung, and a flaming NASCAR crash. We want to turn away appalled/disgusted/embarrassed by and for her but she is so alternately amusing and then infuriating and then baffling that we don’t want to miss an episode and so we sneak guilty peeks only to roll our eyes once again.
Before I get to why I think the book with be initially successful, I want to point out that the strategy of a large first printing (supposedly 1.5 million copies) is a brilliant one by HarperCollins. It’s the Snakes On A Plane approach:
1) Plenty of availability from the get-go
2) Cash in quick
3) Profit! …. before word gets out
Without having read the book (No. Really. They haven’t provided me with a pre-publication copy. Weird, hunh?) I think it is safe to say that we can expect the following:
The heartwarming story of a plucky small town girl, her family, her trials, her tribulations and how her faith has carried her through it all. This is will be Christian ghostwriter Lynn Vincent’s contribution to the book and the reason it will sell well at Wal-Mart for $14.97.
Bitter recriminations, finger-pointing, revenge seeking, blame casting, contempt, snarling self-regard, whining, disgust, smug but baseless know-it-all-ism, and an unreliable narrator’s inside view of the Wiley Coyote campaign of John McCain. This will be the Sarah Palin’s contribution…. and the reason that the rest of us will buy it.
We can’t help ourselves. We’re just stupid that way…
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You nailed it.
Sorry, I wouldn’t buy her book if it had a treasure map inside. And since you pretty much said what it will be like, and because I trust your opinion, I don’t have to waste my time/money/brain cells on it.
Yeah, what she said. I followed Mudflats resolutely through the campaign season and while she was still titularly governor. Once she quit, so did I. I have no interest in following the freak show. Then again, I pay no attention to Hilton and her ilk, either.
I am relying on lefty bloggers to read Palin’s book so I can keep my mind taint-free.
I imagine it’ll be on the remainder table for $4.99 come January 1.
I am another who will not buy the book. I would get so frustrated by teh stoopid inside, I would probably wind up beating myself over the head with it.
It’s kinda like hey, let’s watch Glenn Beck for awhile just for the giggles, and wind up wanting to put your foot through the TV in anger and frustration because you realize that people actually BELIEVE that vile shit.
How about just you buy the book, highlight the best parts, then pass it around to the rest of us?
I foresee follow-up books, probably in collaboration with Jonah. Because never has Teh Stoopid been done at such length, and with such care and in such detail.
First up: “GALT!”, a children’s pop-up book, about how a tough rightwing hero leaves the city for the Alaskan wilderness, where he fights the commie/fascist moose menace by shooting them from small planes. The 100+ page monologue in the middle of the book on how the hero is the bestest dude anywheres, and anyone who says different is a poopiehead, will get rave reviews in the rightwing media, who never actually read past the “pop-up” version of the Palin VP run, because they’re too busy playing with their own “pop-up”s.
Guarantee that this book will sell well out of the chute, as some ultra-right wingnut organizations will buy them in bulk to boost sales (then to be distributed at teabag rallies).
I’m getting the popcorn ready in anticipation of the pushback from anonymous and not anonymous former McCain staff to her view of events. Will it be like badgers fighting over territory or will it be like snipers taking aim from 500 yards? I’d love some carpet bombing but doubt that will happen on record.
Either way, her book tour alone could be like watching a drunk walk through a minefield.
Unfortunately I think she’s too cowardly for a reality show but that’s a show that would have millions riveted.
What? No “lengthy” description of Levi’s Johnston?!
The reviews are in:
WaPo: “Baffling, incoherent” but Palin is well positioned for 2012.
NYT: “Incoherent. baffling” but Palin is a force to be reckoned with in 2012.
WaTimes: “Brilliant, tour de force” Palin is well positioned for 2012.
WSJ: “Brilliant, tour de force” Palin a shoo-in in 2012.
Lowry, Goldberg, Erickson: “Fap, fap, fap, fap, fap, fap…”
Wait. If “pop-up” is the erection and “starbursts” is the splooge… what’s the moose for?
All right, TBogg, I get which contributions are whose, but there’s still aburning question in my mind that you didn’t address: Who colored the pictures?
This book will look good up on the shelf, there, right next to Nailin Palin video.
Ooops, Pop-up!
Sagra, didn’t you hear? Jonah’s a Furry.
Oh good. I was hoping it wasn’t lube.
I’m just happy for Todd. He deserves every penny.
When I’m convinced this country is doomed, it helps to stumble across a headline like this:
People reluctant to book Palin for speaking engagements because ‘they think she is a blithering idiot.’ http://thinkprogress.org/
See? Not everyone in this country is a drooling idiot. It’s just that the sane, intelligent people are in the miniority. We are still doomed.
Shorter donnah: TBogg’s shorter $P tp-roll-in-book-form is enuf 4 me!
I believe that, given the choice, I would buy the memoirs of that cute curly-haired guy that lip synchs to the Blink-182-style rock on the FreeCreditReport.Com commercials before I would even pick up Palin’s book off the remainder table at Walmart just to look for the juicy parts where Todd heads off to go huntin’ with some of his ‘buddies’ (wink-wink, nudge-nudge)and Sarah thinks they really are going to hunt…
Needless to say, this book will probably be a giveaway with subscriptions to or membership in all of the 4 zillion conservative ‘journals and’think tanks’ well into the second half of this benighted century…
I won’t buy the book or read it at the library, but I can’t wait for the Amazon reviews.
I was thinking more along the lines of recycling it by using it to light the BBQ grill.
i think i’ll just wait till it comes out in comic book format. what do you give it? maybe six months? seven? an independence day release date? the perfect american pr moment.
You mean it isn’t in comic book format?
but there’s still aburning question in my mind that you didn’t address: Who colored the pictures?
Nobody, silly. YOU’RE supposed to color them in!
I hope they have pages that show Palin in several of her designer outfits….I’ve loved to color clozzze since I first crayoned in the gowns and wimples of the green, red and blue comic relief fairies in my “Sleeping Beauty” coloring book. And I can show how Sarah’d look with less makeup, and draw squiggly scars on her face, and…no, no, I’d never do that to a pretty lady in pretty clothes. Honest.
Geez, if I purchased this book and a roll of paper towels, Uncle Lyle would be thrilled and not leave the “reading room” till he was done – reading that is . . . just sayin’
See, if only Dan Quayle had lost the 1988 election he coulda been as successful as Sarah. This country is truly fucked.
Who is this “we” you speak of? No amount of curiosity on my part will trump the principle of not contributing to Palin’s income.