Friday, July 23, 2004 10:09 a.m. EDT
Bubba's Book Sales Stalled

After setting sales records in the initial weeks after its June 22 release,
demand for Bill Clinton's memoir "My Life" has cooled considerably.

In fact, the plummeting numbers may set records for the fastest sales
drop-off in publishing history, reports the New York Post.

After selling about a million copies in the first week, sales have dropped
by 95 percent, with the latest Nielsen BookScan numbers registering just
51,037 copies sold for the week of July 18.
The sales plunge comes despite huge discounts off the cover price by major
retailers - and oodles of free media granted by fawning reporters who
continue to cover the ex-prez's every utterance along the book tour trail.

One market where Clinton's publisher Knopf is hoping to see a sales boost is
Russia, where the presidential memior is set to debut in translated form in
January.

"The first print-run of Clinton's 'Life' in Russia will be 15,000 copies but
we hope to sell 20,000-30,000 copies," said Alexander Limansky, spokesman
for the publsiher that acquired the rights to publish Clinton's tome in
Russia.

Because of the vagaries of the Russian language, the translated version of
"My Life" will actually be 25 percent longer than its U.S. counterpart,
reports Pravda - and will include an interesting new detail not covered in
the English version.

According to political scientist Vyacheslav Nikonov, president of the
Politika Foundation, the part of Clinton's book covering his 1970 trip to
Moscow mentions "a good old man from the KGB who held salutary talks with
the young American."

In the English version, Clinton acknowledges that he had meetings with a
Moscow man named Oleg Rakito. But the book identifies Rakito only as someone
who "worked for the government."
--
CB
"He who is void of virtuous attachments in private life is, or very soon
will be, void of all regard for his country."
--Samuel Adams