Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) received massive backing for his new book from a conservative Political Action Committee.
"Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley's The Tyranny of Big Tech sold 20,900 print books in its first week, according to NPD BookScan data provided to Forbes, landing on bestseller lists after his first publisher Simon & Schuster dumped the book over his objections to the presidential election results—and with the help of the GOP book-buying machine and one of the senator's favorite targets: Amazon," Forbes reported Friday.
"The Times' bestseller list listed Hawley's book with a dagger symbol, which the publication uses to denote books that made the list with the help of bulk purchases or other potentially 'suspicious' methods," Forbes explained. "Hawley's book, like a number of his GOP colleagues before him, has benefitted from a large purchase by a Republican donor group: So far, the Federal Election Commission data shows the Senate Conservatives Fund paid Hawley's publisher Regnery Publishing $64,750 in February for 'donor books' supporting Hawley."
Paul Farhi of The Washington Post broke down the math:
The math:\n\n\u201420,900 first-week sales. \n\n\u2014Senate Conserv. Fund bulk buys $64,750 worth.\n\n\u2014At $16 per copy (bulk discount), that\u2019s ~4,050 books\u2014almost 20 percent of 1st week total. \n\nIf bestseller lists include this purchase, *one in five* were bulk bought.https://www.forbes.com/sites/alisondurkee/2021/05/14/josh-hawley-controversial-book-tyranny-of-big-tech-becomes-a-bestseller-with-help-from-his-big-tech-foes-and-bulk-buys/\u00a0\u2026— Paul Farhi (@Paul Farhi) 1621047839
