Donald Trump, Jr. Self-Published Book Boosts Amazon Sales
Donald Trump, Jr.'s new self-published book, Liberal Privilege, is soaring on Amazon's bestseller list after debuting on Sunday. This is the latest sign for right-wing media developing their own ecosystem that does not depend on traditional publishers, social media platforms, news channels and the like to communicate with the masses.
Liberal Privilege is Amazon’s eighth bestseller. The jacket illustration reminds readers that Donald Trump Jr.'s first book, Triggered, was a New York Times bestseller.
While Triggered was posted on Center Street - Hachette's conservative imprint - Donald Trump Jr. likely self-released his second in order to keep a larger share of the profits and have a lot more leeway in what 'he could write, according to multiple reports.
According to Mandi Merritt, the Republican National Committee press secretary at the New York Times, Liberal Privilege should be a boon to her father's re-election campaign. She adds that signed copies of Triggered have raised almost $ 1 million.
On social media, more than 1.7 million conservatives have flocked to Talk, a Twitter-like app, in recent months after Twitter placed warning labels on some controversial President Trump's tweets and Facebook removed some of its campaign ads.
And One America News Network (OANN) has become the Conservatives’s favorite news channel, following Fox News, which raves about President Trump and highlights conspiracy theories.
Not to be overlooked in the future: a Trump television network, the possibility of which was raised before the 2016 election and which could resemble Donald Trump Jr.'s show on YouTube. According to the Los Angeles Times, she is part of the president's re-election campaign.
By selling his new book on Amazon, Donald Trump Jr. has yet to donate some of the profits to the platform - along with CEO and founder Jeff Bezos - the first person with a fortune of $ 200 billion. Donald Trump's son did not respond to a request for comment from Forbes on the matter.
"This is a political pamphlet, not a book," Peter Osnos, head of the general news agency PublicAffairs, told the New York Times of Liberal Privilege. “It has not been subjected to any measurement of quality or precision. (The majority of publishers, however, do not verify the facts of documentary books, and most authors hire freelancers out of their own pockets to verify their work).
The number to remember
286,000. This is the number of copies of Triggered that have sold since its release in November 2019, according to the New York Times.
According to the New York Times, self-published authors can keep between 35 and 70% of their book sales, while authors signed with publishers typically get 10 to 15% of sales after they recoup their advance. It's a financial benefit that comes at the cost of doing more of the work, like proofreading. And most of the major book distributors don't offer self-published books, including Liberal Privilege. A cover preview of Liberal Privilege contained an apostrophe error, which drew some scathing remarks from the publishing world.
Two competing titles topped Amazon’s bestseller list. Disloyal of Michael Cohen - former lawyer and defendant of Donald Trump - pointed in third position on Tuesday. Then Melania and Me, a secret book written by former friend and White House event planner Stephanie Winston Wolkoff, took fourth place.
