As she awaited the return of her estranged uncle to the White House, Mary Trump did not expect a future book to be available to first-time readers like Michael Wolff’s million-selling book. Fire and Fury or his blockbuster, Too Much and Not Enough.
“What else can you learn?” he says. “And for people who don’t know, books have been written. Everything is clear now.”
For publishers, the years of Donald Trump’s presidency were a period of phenomenal sales for political books, helped in part by Trump’s legal threats and angry tweets. According to Circana, which tracks about 85% of the hardcover and paperback market, sales of this type nearly doubled from 2015 to 2020, from an estimated 5 million to 10 million copies.
In addition to Wolf and Trump’s books, other sellers include former FBI Director James Comey High integrity, former national security adviser John Bolton The Room Where It Happened and Bob Woodward Fear. Meanwhile, sales of dystopian fiction also jumped, led by Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, which was adapted into an award-winning Hulu series.
But interest has fallen back to 2015 levels since Trump left office, according to Circana, and publishers doubt it will be much higher again. Readers showed little interest in books about President Joe Biden and his family — they appeared less excited about Trump-related releases. Mary Trump’s Who Would Ever Love You and Woodward’s War both were popular this fall, but nothing like the sales of their books written during the Trump administration.
“We’ve been there many times, with all those books,” HarperCollins publisher Jonathan Burnham said of the Trump tell-all variety. He added that he still sees a market for some of Trump’s books — perhaps analyzing the recent election — because there is a “general, intelligent, non-political audience in a hard way,” that would welcome “an intelligent voice.”
“It’s like a reboot of any hit TV show,” said Eric Nelson, publisher and vice president of Broadside Books, the HarperCollins imprint that publishes books from Jared Kushner, Gov. Florida Gov. Marco Rubio. “You don’t trust the ratings like in the past, the ratings are just better than the boring show that will replace it.”
In the days following Trump’s victory, The Handmaid’s Tale and George Orwell 1984 returned to the bestseller list, along with other contemporary works such as Timothy Snyder’s By Tyranny, the best seller of 2017 was a Facebook post Snyder posted shortly after Trump defeated Hillary Clinton. Books that appeal to pro-Trump readers are also on the rise, including those written by Cabinet picks — from Robert F. Kennedy Jr. The real Anthony Fauci and Hegseth The War on Warriors – and Vice President-elect JD Vance’s Hillbilly Elegy, Her 2016 memoir sold hundreds of thousands of copies since Trump chose her as his running mate.
In memory of first lady Melania Trump, Melanie, it came out in October and topped Amazon.com’s bestseller list for weeks, as critics found it contained little newsworthy information. According to Circana, it has sold more than 200,000 copies, which does not include books sold directly through its website.
“Melania’s book did very well, better than we thought,” said Barnes & Noble CEO James Daunt. “After Election Day, we sold everything we had.”
Conservative books have sold steadily over the years, and several publishers — most recently Hachette Book Group — have brands dedicated to those readers. Publishers expect at least some critical books to reach the bestseller list – if only because of the publishing market’s culture that favors the party out of power. But it is uncertain what those books will look like. Perhaps someone who has gone inside will have a disagreement with Trump and write a memoir, like Bolton or Trump’s ex-lawyer Michael Cohen, or maybe some of his planned programs, whether mass deportations or persecution of his political enemies, will lead to investigative activities.
New Fire and Fury it is doubtful, at first it was only possible because Wolff enjoyed extraordinary access, spending months around Trump and his White House staff. Members of the president-elect’s current team have issued a statement saying they declined to speak with Wolff, calling the writer “a notorious peddler of fake news who routinely concocts situations, conversations and conclusions that never happened.”
A spokesman for Wolff said he declined to comment.
Woodward, who interviewed Trump at length about the best seller of 2020 Ryears, told the Associated Press that he had written so much about Trump and other presidents that he wasn’t sure what he would take on next. He’s not ruling out another Trump book, but that will depend in part on the president-elect, how “out of control” he is, Woodward said, and how far he can go.
“He wants to be a royal president, where he decides everything and no one is going to get in his way,” Woodward said. “You have faced brick walls in the past and there may be more brick walls. I don’t know what will happen. I’ll be watching and doing something, but I’m still undecided.”
Top 5 best-selling books related to Trump, according to Circana
- Too Much and Not Enough, by Mary Trump: 1,248,212 copies
- Fire and Fury, by Michael Wolff: 936,116 copies
- Fear, by Bob Woodward: 872,014 copies
- The room where it happened, by John Bolton: 676,010 copies
- anger, by Bob Woodward: 549,685 copies
These figures represent the total sales offered by Circana, which tracks about 85% of the print market and does not include e-book or audiobook sales.
-Hillel Italie, Associated Press national writer
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