During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, one of the best ways to promote a book was to somehow get it denounced at the pulpit. Clerical outrage was sure to whet public appetite for any tome thus singled out. In our era, the establishment media fill the same promotional niche. If a book is panned by the NYT, sneered at by NPR and trashed by the big progressive blogs, it will be a huge success.
This has, of course, been the key to Ann Coulter’s success. The more the media trash her, the more books she sells. So, it was with the voice of authority that Coulter said in a recent interview that she was jealous of all the attacks to which Sarah Palin’s new book has been subjected. In other words, the very people who fear and loath Palin the most will virtually guarantee the success of Going Rogue.
What could be better for sales than a team of eleven AP drones scouring the pages of Palin’s book for obscure errors and publishing their “findings” worldwide? What could be better for sales than a snarling cover story in a major “news” weekly? What could be better for sales than a high-profile blogger who (virtually) stalks her, despite the pleas of his increasingly despondent readers?
This is what all politicians, actors and writers pray for—-free publicity. It doesn’t matter that they hate and fear her. As Brendan Behan famously observed, there is no such thing as bad publicity.
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