Ted Is Dead in the Head
Okay, here was the plan:
1. Get somebody to write a book for you.
2. Buy up copies of the book very strategically with your campaign account or with SuperPac money an store them in somebody’s garage. The goal is to buy enough copies that you …
3. Get on the New York Times bestseller list.
It worked for Sarah Palin. Once. Then the New York Times caught on.
The New York Times informed HarperCollins this week that it will not include Ted Cruz’s new biography on its forthcoming bestsellers list, despite the fact that the book has sold more copies in its first week than all but two of the Times’ bestselling titles, the On Media blog has learned.
Cruz’s “A Time For Truth,” published on June 30, sold 11,854 copies in its first week, according to Nielsen Bookscan’s hardcover sale numbers. That’s more than 18 of the 20 titles that will appear on the bestseller list for the week ending July 4.
Cruz whined and asked why, oh why, can’t I be a famous author. They answered, and just so you know this is not a liberal conspiracy …
“In the case of this book, the overwhelming preponderance of evidence was that sales were limited to strategic bulk purchases,” she wrote.
The title of Cruz’s book is A Time For Truth. Obviously that time is not right now.
Thanks to Patty and Alfredo over at the Dairy Queen for the heads up.
If I ought his book, I would need a new box of crayons.
1Flim flam, and amateur at best! It done came back and bit you again, Tedster, that mean old karma thing!
2A time for what, now?
3Well it will be a great book to take on a camping trip. You can use it as toilet paper.
4Ted learned to scam from the pros: Scientology pioneered this technique to get Hubbard’s effluent writings onto the best-seller lists and keep them there.
Ted probably had to hire someone to make the strategic bulk purchases. Hubbard had his Office of Special Affairs to do that; additionally, worshipful and compliant Scientologists were ordered to go buy five or ten copies of Dianetics. Later the “Church” pursued the same tactic with Hubbard’s pulp sci-fi efforts, such as Battlefield Earth
5Bulk sales, huh? That means they’ll end up as swag. I’ll be sure to miss that event.
6I can hear him whining…
7I am glad the NYT is going back to reporting bulk sales & taking that into account re its best-seller list. Until very recently the Times had stopped reporting bulk sales, and all sorts of R-Wing Welfare books were supposed “best sellers.”
8I have always thought these right wing authors got their “best seller” status through trickery. I knew ol’ Sarah did it. It worked for her for awhile. Ted, not so much. Love it when Karma bites back.
9Soon to be at a dollar store near you!
10The subtitle for his biography should be “How Long Will My Grift Last, Suckers!”
11Sad waste of trees.
12First they buy the books to get on the best seller list. Then they buy the books from themselves with PAC money to “donate” to supporters. It’s a sweet deal, when you can shuffle the money:
Palin was taken to task in early 2010 for using her political action committee, Sarah PAC, to buy up copies of the book for donor gifts ($100 got you a free, signed copy of “Going Rogue”).
13http://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/when-politicians-buy-their-own-books
one of Ted’s personalities: “I want the truth!”
14another of Ted’s personalities: “You can’t handle the truth!”
yet another of Ted’s personalities: “Time to get a ghostwriter!”
all Ted’s voices, together: “Yeahhhhh”
I doubt that Cruz has 11,854 followers who know how to read.
Maybe they can find themselves a ghostreader.
15Crybaby Cruz thought he had it in the bag, just like he thinks he has a chance at the presidency. not gonna happen.
16Rhea has it right … a total waste of trees!!
17The st00pid, it burns. First Daffy Dominionist, Jr. has a coloring book published and fails to include in the price the extra large box of all white crayons to whitewash history as he would like to revise it.
Now he expects us to believe that he has put on some big boy pants and written a real book. Time for Alfredo to audit his campaign expenses to locate the warehouse(s) storing that pile of excrement courtesy of PAC funds.
If I was feeling mean spirited today, I’d fire off an e-mail to AIPAC telling them the many loathsome truths about their alleged ‘friends,’ the Dominionists. Truth #1, their “love” of Israel is merely a de facto let the Jews be the place holders for the Promised Land, until the Dominionists are ready to rapture and capture the territory.
18Available now at Sam’s Club. Must have been one of the big orders.
19This has been a feature of the conservative movement since Raygun. It has really proven a boon to hack writers and editors with no self respect; slap together 250 barely readable pages, massage it with focus groups, give it a patriotic-sounding title, a dump it on the market. Your super-donors can buy as many as they want, thus ensuring you get on the NYTBSL.
It’s a slap at every good writer out there, and takes up print pages that could showcase the next William Allen White.
20There is ‘the Truth’ and
21‘the gods honest Truth’
and then there is ‘republican truth’
As an inveterate reader–even reading cereal boxes at the breakfast table–even I cannot stomach the thought of trying to slog through the tripe presented by Crazy-Eyes Cruz!
22Cruz, Jindal, Huckabee and Trump, among others have started their own internet domain:
.con
23laughing!!!!
24Right on, Linda!
25Laughing, as well!
Thank you, PKM. Y’all really could write your own real books about Dominionism. I think I’ll look and see what the latest is on Dominionism….Well, looks like that has dwindled on the internet, but it’s still bubbling along. Now we can see it in action as they try to take over the world. But what do I know….
(Dominionism and) “Christian Reconstructionists advocate a theocratic government and libertarian economic principles. They maintain a distinction of spheres of authority between family, church, and state.” from Wikipedia.
26Every one of these right wing hack books that show up on best-seller lists are put there by bulk purchases. Just usually not by the authors campaign. It’s usually websites like WND or magazines like US News & World Report that buy them by the gross and give them away as gifts to new subscribers .
27In this case, Number 3! http://www.oldamericancentury.org/14pts.htm
28See how everyone could have been happy if only Raphael’s book had appeared under a fiction heading? Raphael could have had his “book” on the NYT BSL, bulk-buyers could snap it up in the tens to give away to .. well, whoever and those of us who would like an appearance on the NYT BSL to mean something would not have our eyes sullied by Raphael’s collection of word salad.
29Marge Wood, just a guess, but it appears that wiki definition is a bit sterile. Maybe Daffy, Jr. or Sr. edited the page. It’s correct as far as the theocracy libertarian blend, but fails to give full credit to the Dominionist scheme for the Promised Land. Compared to what they have planned for Israel down the road, old Bibi might want to make friends with the Palestinians and Iran.
ROFL Brilliant, Linda Phipps – .con. ROFL Thanks for the great start to my day.
30Fenway Fran: it’s also at Costco! Oh the horror of it all!The humanity!
31People have been trying to game the NYT bestseller lists for quite a while, and the NYT has tightened its policies on what are allowable sales. The Old Lady does not like to be used that way.
Having been on the “extended” list a few times myself, and watched other writers try to think up ways to game the system (usually at the suggestion of scam “publicity specialists”), it’s not worth it; sometime back, WriterBeware posted a lengthy explanation of why it doesn’t work anymore, to the extent it ever did. They’ll catch you unless you can deploy a small number of buyers at each (or nearly) of the qualifying stores across the country. Selling your authors’ copies out the back of your car doesn’t count. Etc.
Granted that Cruz’s fans are idiotic enough to go out and spend money for his book at actual bookstores, but they’d be more likely to do so if he sent them the money (“Here’s $$$; go buy my book at your local B&N.”) They won’t end up as swag, except at major fundraisers where the attendees have already paid a large multiple of the book’s cost to the PAC.
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