C4L: Party Favors Conservative bestsellers run long on celebrity but short on ideas.

[SnyderShrugged]

http://www.campaignforliberty.com/article.php?view=370

Very fair criticism of the right's "conservative" authors.


Party Favors
Conservative bestsellers run long on celebrity but short on ideas.

Even in lean economic times, conservative books are a booming business. Once right-wing publishing was the province of profitless true believers. Now conservative imprints are ensconced in most of New York's major publishing houses. The liberals who dominate the scene hold their noses while their hired-hand conservatives bid big dollars for contracts with the Right's marquee names.
On one level, it is tempting to greet the rise of the conservative bestseller with elation. Our long exile from the world of letters has ended. We're on the New York Times bestseller list. We have arrived. But where?

The triumph of conservative book sales has not coincided with great gains for conservative ideas in politics or the broader culture. Conservatives hold little sway in the Republican Party, and the Republican Party holds little sway in the nation's capital. We're the backbench of a minority. More importantly, there's not much intellectual rigor in the Right's bestsellers. For all the pages printed, the movement runs short on real ideas.

More at link

[twa]

This quote should help explain


"Educate and inform the whole mass of the people... They are the only sure reliance for the preservation of our liberty."

—Thomas Jefferson

In appealing to the masses you must simplify the message
in short most don't care or are incapable of grasping in depth reasoning

[Thiebear]

They are reviewing "Talk show hosts" books. And pulling one line out of an entire book that is meant to only make money for the host? duh!

Who actually read Levin or Malkin or Beck? .0001%

None of the listed were from actual conservative thinkers vs. talkers.

[SnyderShrugged]

They are reviewing "Talk show hosts" books. And pulling one line out of an entire book that is meant to only make money for the host? duh!

Who actually read Levin or Malkin or Beck? .0001%

None of the listed were from actual conservative thinkers vs. talkers.


I think that's actually the premise of the article. He longs for the thinkers over the talkers to write.

[Burgold]

The sad thing is that it doesn't take a great book or interesting ideas to sell a book these days, it takes fame or notoriety. Perhaps, it was always that way.

[SnyderShrugged]

The sad thing is that it doesn't take a great book or interesting ideas to sell a book these days, it takes fame or notoriety. Perhaps, it was always that way.


add in a healthy dose of money, just enough to give it a #1 on amazon, and you are suddenly up for a freaking pulitzer!

I know a few business authors who are not very good writers, but used writing a book as a marketing campaign for their consulting businesses.

Each one purchased themselves high Amazon ratings. They said you can literally contact Amazon as an author and ask how many copies you need to have sold for a good rating, then they just bought them themselves.

[Burgold]

Hmmm.... I'm probably to cheap to do that when my book comes out, but it's definately something to think about. :evil:

[SnyderShrugged]

Hmmm.... I'm probably to cheap to do that when my book comes out, but it's definately something to think about. :evil:



LOL, you should!!

They also told me that most of those testimonial quotes that you see on the back covers are also paid for, often the person quoted never even read the book, just took some dough to say something nice about it or the author.

Send me a few hundred and I'll write a humdinger for yours!! (Heck, I'll even read it first!)

[Thiebear]

I think that's actually the premise of the article. He longs for the thinkers over the talkers to write.

So he can't read "End the Fed" ;) 2009
or George Will or Buckley etc. etc. etc.

[SnyderShrugged]

So he can't read "End the Fed" ;) 2009
or George Will or Buckley etc. etc. etc.


They havent hit the "star power" that the talking head "writers" get.

(End the Fed is great btw, have you had a chance to check it out? )

[Predicto]

I heard an ad on the radio the other day. "Sign up for our website and we will sell you a copy of Sarah Palin's book for $3.99."

I wonder how many of these conservative bestsellers are actually bought by readers, rather than by conservative organizations. I really have no idea.

But it sure seems like a good way to get massive attention for the conservative cause. Buy a truckload of books, which propels the book to the top of the bestseller lists, which creates the impression that the book represents an overwhelming groundswell of support for the ideas it espouses. Probably cheaper than hiring lobbyists.

[McD5]

I heard an ad on the radio the other day. "Sign up for our website and we will sell you a copy of Sarah Palin's book for $3.99."

I wonder how many of these conservative bestsellers are actually bought by readers, rather than by conservative organizations. I really have no idea.

But it sure seems like a good way to get massive attention for the conservative cause. Buy a truckload of books, which propels the book to the top of the bestseller lists, which creates the impression that the book represents an overwhelming groundswell of support for the ideas it espouses. Probably cheaper than hiring lobbyists.

I believe they all do this, similiar to Skins games supposedly being sold out.

Barbra Streisand admitted a few years ago that she had personally purchased sixty thousand copies of some left wing book, to "distribute as gifts to friends and family." Her entire garage was filled with them.

[Prosperity]

Now conservative offerings come with diagrams of farting cows -- bless Glenn Beck. No one is likely to have his worldview rocked by Sean Hannity's Deliver Us From Evil or his political eyes opened by Michelle Malkin's Unhinged. Laura Ingraham's Shut Up and Sing slides easily down the memory hole. But permanence isn't their intent. Conservatism has shifted from a modest cast of mind to a playground contest of insults. Millions can play along.

This isn't to say that bestselling conservative authors don't manage to pack arguments into their books or buttress those arguments with facts and footnotes. But they do not aim to challenge the faithful or change the minds of their opponents -- to turn moderates into conservatives or shake liberals from their delusions. Conservative readers are looking for how-to manuals -- an easy way to beat that liberal sister-in-law in a dinner-table debate. Thus Beck's latest blockbuster offers "the secret formula to winning arguments against people with big mouths but small minds."

sounds about right, of course I don't read that garbage, but it certainly consistent with the way right way demagogues portray themselves in every other public setting

[Predicto]

I believe they all do this, similiar to Skins games supposedly being sold out.

Barbra Streisand admitted a few years ago that she had personally purchased sixty thousand copies of some left wing book, to "distribute as gifts to friends and family." Her entire garage was filled with them.

I had never heard that, but it does not surprise me in the least.