Everyone LOVES a good book (espesh politician$)

So, there’s a few news stories about books recently that have me thinking of this topic.

It’s been reported that the RNC purchased $100,000 worth of ‘Triggered’ which is currently #2 on the non-fiction listings. The RNC claims it has made $500,000 from sales of the book, but there are not really any sources provided to understand what the cost per book they paid or what sort fundraising was done with the book.
This book is retailing at $30 but sells for $18 on Amazon. There is a Salon article claiming that other Republicans are ‘offering’ the book with donations greater than $35 (Rep. Matt Gaetz aka Rep Turdnugget and Rep Kevin McCarthy). Also according to the Times, "The Texas Republican Party bought copies of the book (Triggered) to give 'as a gift to each of the attendees.”

https://www.salon.com/2019/11/29/republican-party-allies-caught-boosting-sales-of-donald-trump-jr-s-new-book-triggered/

I recalled when they were trying to shame Bernie about being a millionaire that he stated he had a best selling book. So I looked at his last few tax returns and it indeed seems that he made approx $700k in '16 and '17 from such royalties with only $300k in '18. His book is selling hardcopy on Amazon for $9 but can be purchased on his campaign page for $15.

The above seem likely at least arguably ok but now to something much worse. Former Baltimore Mayor Caroline Pugh served on the board of the University of Maryland Medical System as a member of the board. She wrote a series of childrens books called ‘Healthy Holly’ which a vendor of the UMMS purchased at least 20,000 copies of (she claimed $100k profit from these books on a disclosure form but NYT claims the total figure is above $500,000). To make things more hilarious 9,000 copies turned up in the basement of a Baltimore School District warehouse, so clearly they were well sought after.

So what’s the deal with these? Do you think these vanilla book deals are legit, in bad taste or otherwise?

Plenty of the book deals are legit, which provides cover for the nonlegit ones. Would have to look at the specifics of each case. The Triggered thing is borderline criminal. The Bernie book is standard and fine.

Aw, I thought this was going to be a book thread. Do we have one?

For some additional context on the Mayor Pugh thing: UMMS, Kaiser Permanente, a local capital management guy, Blue Cross/Blue Shield, a family trust foundation, and an auto insurance trust fund all bought her books. Several of those orgs bought the books through Associated Black Charities, which administers a lot of grant money for the city and is currently under investigation for awarding grants to unqualified applicants which I’m sure had nothing to do with grifting like this. The remaining purchasers were all awarded significant city business after purchasing the books.

Pugh sold approximately 130k books. Only 60k books were ever printed and, as pointed out, many of those that were sold in reality just sat in a city warehouse. It shouldn’t be surprising that the purchasers didn’t actually want the books, because they were littered with spelling and grammatical errors.

Pugh also pleaded guilty to some pretty lol tax evasion where she, among other things, reported income of 30k in a year where she made over 300k.

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Yup What are you reading?

Not saying you are not right, but what is the difference IYO? Tomorrow if the DNC decides they want Bernie ‘on the bus’ and start buying his book, at what point does it become in appropriate?

Hijack away in my opinion.