Will Obama Instant Book Flop Like 'Brad & Jen'?
Hopes and Dreams: The Story of Barack Obama, an "instant-book" slapped together by a freelance writer in two weeks, will be published this week by Black Dog & Leventhal. According to the WSJ, this is an instance of a burgeoning trend: "with book sales declining, publishers increasingly are looking for quick-turnaround opportunities, hoping to tap public interest in a subject when it is hot." Oh, those desperate publishers, always looking for new ways to compensate for their tragically declining sales!
Of course, as most people with a passing interest in book publishing (i.e., not the WSJ) know, instant books aren't exactly new. Nor are they the safe-bet cash-in strategy that this article makes them out to be.
While the writer&mdash:Jeffrey A. Trachtenberg, an author himself—does pause to consider that "some speedily produced personality books bomb, as interest in the subject fades before the title hits the market," in general he's gotten pretty insanely breathless about all this.
Will readers actually snap up the $9.95 photo-padded paperback? Perhaps history can be our guide here. Despite a buttload of publicity, the best-known insta-book in recent memory, Wenner Books' Brad&Jen, was a flop, selling less than 4,000 copies (per Bookscan). Of course, the chance that the Obama story will take a dramatic turn in the dating-Angelina direction a week after publication is much slimmer here, but still.
