Obama Citizenship

#IAmTheMob: Sarah Palin goes ?Rogue? and Hits #1 on Amazon, B&N in Pre-Sales

By Phil

Back in July, I had reported on then-Governor Sarah Palin’s (R-AK) resignation (a nice farewell here) and some initial thoughts from across the blogosphere (and from me) on what her plans for the future were. Today, however, we can certainly see where her ideas are likely to go, as her first autobiographical book — all 400 some-odd pages of it — hits pre-sales in a very big way.

Let’s start the coverage with the Sarahs-Accomplishments blog giving a great overview of general commentary:

In less than 12 hours after Barnes & Noble first offered “Going Rogue: An American Life,” Sarah Palin?s brand new book, for pre-publication sales, it has hit number one on their chart!

The book is currently number two on Amazon.com. Amazon, for some reason, was many hours behind the curve, and didn?t have the book linked. This allowed Barnes & Noble to get the early sales, and the book to reach number one on their charts a lot sooner.

**** Updated! As of 5:15 PM “Going Rogue: An American Life” is now the number one best seller at Amazon.com! ****

This new book, so new that it doesn?t even have a cover design yet, has generated serious buzz. Easily the most anticipated book of the year, Palin and her publisher HarperCollins surprised everyone when they announced that Sarah had finished her book already and the launch date had been moved to November 17 from it?s original Spring 2010 time period.

From Fox News

NEW YORK- That was fast.

Sarah Palin, the former Alaska governor and vice presidential candidate, has finished her memoir just four months after the book deal was announced, and the release date has been moved up from the spring to Nov. 17, her publisher said.

“Governor Palin has been unbelievably conscientious and hands-on at every stage, investing herself deeply and passionately in this project,” said Jonathan Burnham, publisher of Harper. “It’s her words, her life, and it’s all there in full and fascinating detail.”

Palin’s book, her first, will be 400 pages, said Burnham, who called the fall “the best possible time for a major book of this kind.”

The book now has a title, one fitting for a public figure known for the unexpected — “Going Rogue: An American Life.”

Harper, an imprint of HarperCollins, has commissioned a huge first printing of 1.5 million copies. Sen. Ted Kennedy’s “True Compass,” published by Twelve soon after his Aug. 25 death, also had a 1.5 million first printing.

As with the Kennedy book, the digital edition of Palin’s memoir will not be released at the same time as the hardcover. “Going Rogue” will not be available as an e-book until Dec. 26 because “we want to maximize hardcover sales over the holidays,” Harper spokeswoman Tina Andreadis said Monday.

Publishers have been concerned that e-books, rapidly becoming more popular, might take away sales from hardcover editions, which are more expensive.

Palin, who abruptly resigned as Alaska governor over the summer with more than a year left in her first term, has been an object of fascination since Sen. John McCain, the Republican presidential candidate in 2008, chose her as his running mate.

Although Democrat Barack Obama won the election and Palin was criticized even by some Republicans for being inexperienced, she remains a favorite among conservatives and is a rumored contender for 2012. Interest in her is so high that a fan recently paid $63,500 to have dinner with her, part of an Internet auction for a charity that aids wounded veterans.

Palin, 45, spent weeks in San Diego shortly after leaving office and worked on the manuscript with collaborator Lynn Vincent, a person close to her said. She was joined in San Diego by her family and her top aide, Meghan Stapleton, then spent several weeks in New York working around the clock with editors at Harper, said the person, who wasn’t authorized to comment and asked not to be identified.

We knew Sarah was a hard worker, but oh my goodness, she didn?t let any time go to waste!

This also answers the question of those who wondered why she had been “heard (on Facebook) but not seen.” It?s obvious though, after her great Hong Kong speech, and this announcement, that things are about to change on that front!

The synopsis of the book of the book reads as follows:

Sarah Palin burst onto the political scene at the height of the 2008 presidential campaign and overnight became a national sensation. Adored by the right, bitterly reviled by the left, she is the most polarizing figure to emerge in American politics in decades. Yet for all the dirt digging and gossip that has surrounded her, very little is actually known about who she is, what she believes, and above all, about her plans for the future. In her new book, Sarah Palin tells the story of her Alaskan upbringing, her marriage and family life, her political career, her religious beliefs, and her meteoric rise to national prominence. With her customary blunt common sense, she sets the record straight about the many myths and lies that have been spun around her and lays out her vision for an America that is strong, independent, and free.

We all knew this would be an autobiographical book, but it?s the last sentence that is intriguing and will sell the books! America is hungry for a true leader. The first person to come up with a real vison to get the nation back on track will most certainly shoot to the head of the pack.

Sarah started laying things out in her Hong Kong speech. It was a policy speech full of solid ideas, the book obviously looks to expand on that.

HarperCollins has ordered an initial printing 1.5 million. Currently, Sarah has 905,787 Facebook friends, and this increases every hour, on the hour. One can bet that most will buy, at minimum, one book, with many planning these as Christmas presents, and buying multiple books. I think we?re going to need more books!

Rush Limbaugh offered his thoughts:

The Wall Street Journal?s John Fund had some interesting insight on the behind the scenes goings on, and pretty much confirms what we already knew about the inept McCain campaign:

Sarah Palin may no longer be governor of Alaska, but she’s certainly destined to become a best-selling author. HarperCollins, her publisher, has announced the print-run of her memoir will be a staggering 1.5 million copies — equal to the print-run of Senator Ted Kennedy’s posthumous autobiography published this month. Publishing sources tell me that such a giant run is only ordered up when there is clear evidence from booksellers and surveys of massive interest in a book.

The book, which will be published on November 17, was a crash project. Ms. Palin actually moved temporarily to San Diego after she resigned the governorship in July so she could be close to her collaborator, Lynn Vincent. I bumped into Ms. Vincent, a former editor at the Christian-oriented World magazine, in New York a few weeks ago, where she had parked herself in a hotel close to the offices of HarperCollins while working on the book’s final edits.

Ms. Vincent didn’t reveal any details about the book, but did acknowledge it will describe Ms. Palin’s frustration over her treatment by the staffers she inherited from the McCain campaign after her surprise pick as the GOP vice presidential nominee last year. Ms. Palin was booked on grueling interviews with hostile reporters while talk-show hosts such as Glenn Beck couldn’t even get through to her aides. Mr. Beck tells me he was stunned when he picked up the phone one day just before the election to discover Sarah Palin was on the other end of the line. “She explained that she had been blocked from reaching her audience, so she was now ‘going rogue’ and booking her own interviews,” Mr. Beck told me. “I was thrilled she had burst out of the cage they’d built for her and we were finally talking.”

That incident was the only time Ms. Palin declared her independence from her keepers, and it’s fitting that the title of her upcoming book will be “Going Rogue: An American Life.”

This was a brilliant move for the Arctic Fox, and not just for sales of her book. As all big books require a book tour, and a round of interviews on all of the top shows, Sarah will be laying out her vision for America at a time it is sorely needed. At the same time, she will be starting her effort to go and campaign for like minded candidates for the 2010 elections.

Brilliant timing, and we expected no less from Sarah Palin!

The AmericanPower blog synopsizes further reactions:

Leftists are already pouncing to rekindle old smears against Ms. Palin. And the smears will continue. So far, Palin’s done everything right in lining herself up for the 2012 GOP primaries. Recall my essay on this July, “Can Palin Win the 2012 GOP Nomination?” Along with her book — impressively scheduled for an early release — she’s raising money, traveling internationally, and offering widely-read policy papers (well, Facebook “papers,” more accurately). And recall that Palin has been recognized as the most effective GOP critic of President Brack Obama. See, most recently, “Palin, in Hong Kong, Criticizes Obama’s Policies.” Best of all, Palin’s looking good in pulbic opinion. See, Gallup, “Romney Edges Palin, Huckabee in Early 2012 GOP Test.” Despite that headline, Palin’s the’s the one to beat in 2012, far and away.

The LOTUS (Laptop of the United States) blog quipped:

I have a feeling Madame’s book may just be a “stimulus package” for the paper, ink, book binding, and bookstore industries. If Madame is already #1 after day one of pre-sale, I can only imagine how many she will sell over the next several months. I’m sure that just at the sight of the words “Sarah Palin’ and “number one”, President Obama will get wee-weed up again!

Sarahs-Accomplishments also makes note of a recent AmericanThinker.com article regarding the political future of 2012:

So we are seeing a president who is way over his head. Obama has great political talent, but not nearly as great as his overweening pride. So he keeps over-reaching, and there is a good chance that we will see him hit the first massive brick wall in his health-care power-grab in the coming weeks. The Democrats may pass a symbolic medical package to save face for Obama — but then watch American seniors turn out in the tens of millions next year to throw the bums out of the House and part of the Senate. Seniors see their Medicare being stolen from them and they are not going to forget that by election time 2010.

Obama seems to be incapable of controlling his own egomania, and that means further humiliations in the years ahead. Remember that Bill Clinton looked unbeatable in 1992 and was impeached by a Republican House in 1998. No president since Richard Nixon has been brought lower than Clinton was ten years ago. Today we may be seeing Obama at the very peak of his ballistic orbit, and just beginning to curve down.

But you can’t beat a strong candidate with a weak one, and the GOP notoriously nominates some real duds. Palin has scared the Left into mass hysteria because of her star quality on the campaign trail with a visibly creaking John McCain. Sarah Palin is our only charismatic leader at this profoundly dangerous time. That is why her actions are so important to the fate of the GOP, and to the future of this country and the world. Her use of Facebook to make public policy statements has been both effective and smart. Palin is using the web just as Reagan used radio and TV, to get around the murderous filter of the media.

Sarah Palin gave an extraordinarily well-crafted speech in Hong Kong, a real Reagan speech. It almost sounds as if Henry Kissinger is advising her.

[...]

Since the election campaign, it seems that Sarah Palin recruited a top-notch team of advisors and political talent. The Hong Kong speech goes straight to her alleged weakness in foreign affairs, and it is a very good first step toward re-making her media image to be more substantive. The truth is that most of our media heads would not recognize foreign policy substance if it hit them right between the eyes. But they know the image of substance, and the Hong Kong speech was good on both appearance and reality. She demonstrated “gravitas” — in the pop slogan of the early Bush years. We need more of the same, but she has now shown convincingly that she can do it.

Obama is in for real competition in 2012; since world peace and our national well-being are clearly at stake, the more strong conservatives emerge, the better off we will be. Obama is the very worst president for these times. It is important to defeat him in a fair fight. Palin can do it; so can some others, but she is exceptionally talented.

We also need to see a “fair” fight within the GOP insofar as leadership and 2012 hopefuls are concerned. The problem that I think the “establishment” GOP is going to have is that Ms. Palin is not going to back down from her stances nor her charisma, and I think that this combination of ideas and stateswomanship is going to cause issues for the more moderate aspects of the GOP.

Then again, I don’t think that a majority of Americans are going to be satisfied with merely the ideas of “let’s grow the federal government bigger” (DNC) or “let’s only grow the federal government bigger in certain areas” (RNC). And that’s precisely why the Woman That Would Be President ™ has scorched her ideas to the top of pre-sales lists in one day (go re-read the last sentence of the first paragraph of the quoted WSJ/John Fund article again).

This tome shall be an excellent addition to my book collection.

-Phil

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Photo courtesies:

sarahs-accomplishments.blogspot.com

americanpowerblog.blogspot.com

anotherblackconservative.blogspot.com

Full post as published by The Right Side of Life on September 30, 2009 (boomark / email).