Wednesday, June 10, 2009

Note re Roberts

It appears as if the National Mendacity Tour failed to pay off for Selena Roberts. The AP reports:

Published in early May by HarperCollins with an announced first printing of 150,000, "A-Rod" has sold just 16,000 copies so far, according to Nielsen BookScan, which tracks about 75 percent of industry sales. The book sold 11,000 in its first week, then quickly faded.

At the Rizzoli Bookstore in midtown Manhattan, "A-Rod" has sold two copies. Twenty-seven copies have sold at Posman Books, based in Grand Central Terminal, but none in the past two weeks.

21 comments:

One Spook said...

As many have observed here, sometimes the wheels of Justice turn slowly.

Given that miscreants in the media like serial liar Selena Roberts are difficult to sue, this failure of her book sales is probably the best "Justice" reasonable and honest people could hope for ... her book sales are pathetic and she's pathetic as well.

I hope Harper Collins takes a colossal loss on this book. They deserve it for associating with a known liar like Roberts.

One Spook

Anonymous said...

A question - which book has been the less successful - Mangum's or Roberts'?
cks

Anonymous said...

@ One Spook

I concede that a failure of the book to sell definitely hurts someone's pocketbook and that, under the current state of the law, no one can realistically hope for much more. However, without knowing what advance, if any, Roberts got, it is difficult to know whether the chief perpetrator or the merely complicit suffered. We can HOPE that there was no advance and that her time was utterly wasted, but such a hope assumes an intelligence on the part of publishers that my experience does not fully warrant.

JeffM

Anonymous said...

I would find it difficult to believe that she did not get an advance. Given that her book was published by a major publisher; that it was intended to be an expose(?) of a major sports figure; and that the author was a "major" sports writer for SI, I would imagine that she got at a minimum a $25,000.00 advance - and probably as much as $50,000.00. She may also have had a deal whereby she gets a certain percentage of the sales after the advance has been covered.
To put it another way, I do not think that her income is hurting at this point because sales have been poor - her pride, on the other hand might be.
cks

Anonymous said...

The author of this blog is apparently the sort who doesn't gloat.

Perhaps I can help.

It has seemed to me, for some time, that we were witnessing an extraordinary example of asymetric disputation executed by a history professor from Brooklyn against an A-level NYT/SI mendacitist.

These book sales data seem to confirm the above referenced campaign, of the past few weeks, as a resounding success. Something pushed the Roberts' book way below expectations (publisher's first print run).

I guess that Roberts would consider this falling short of book sales expectations as far and away the cruelest blow - way more than just the money. Sure hope so.

What a famous victory!

What a privilege to have this front row seat.

Anonymous said...

Good!! I'm glad her book sold poorly. Even if the A-Rod allegations are true I would rather wait until someone more credible writes a book about them.

Does anyone know how many copies of "Until Proven innocent" sold?

Anonymous said...

Good.

Anonymous said...

She can't afford to live in Westport, CT forever with sales like that!

Anonymous said...

This just doesn't hurt her with this book. Unless she has a relative making the decision, her next one will be non-existent.

Debrah said...

TO (12:28 AM)--

Such an exquisite point!

Anonymous said...

This weeks Sports Illustrated (6/15) has a full page ad (p. 29) for this piece of trash book. What did that cost? In bold letters at the top of the ad are quotes from the NYT review - "Important...Devastating...Merciless"
Maybe that's actually the belated retraction / apology from the NYT for Selena's hack article on the Duke lacrosse team.

Anonymous said...

"has sold just 16,000 copies so far," proving America's bias against lesbian writers.

Duke Prof

mb said...

The other morning I noted with a smile that even that bastion of political correctness NPR gave Roberts' book a poor review on their show "Morning Edition," which for them is really saying something. They almost never provide reviews that are critical, especially for women and minority writers, film directors and stars, etc. I think that NPR simply passes on reviewing works that the reviewers don't like, so it surprised me when I heard the segment with the reviews including Roberts' book.

One Spook said...

Duke Prof @ 11:16 AM writes:

""has sold just 16,000 copies so far," proving America's bias against lesbian writers."

Now that's FUNNY!

Regarding others' comments, I'm sure serial liar Roberts received an advance of 30 pieces of silver for betraying the few remaining "professional standards" in journalism.

That she has received the castigation of some of her peers and that her book sales are beyond awful is far more devastating to her. Remember, she thinks she's "somebody" when in fact, she has been proven to be "nobody."

That's the unkindest cut of all for a poseur like Roberts.

One Spook

a Nice NJ Guy said...

Could it be true?

A major literary honor will be given to Ms. Selena Roberts.

The Jason Blair Fiction Award.

Unknown said...

Don't forget sports talk radio people. In Portland a top rated afternoon show host ripped her because of her Duke Lascroose articles. Dan Patrick was ripped by his listeners for going soft on her when he interviewed her about the book. Dan spent days justifing his questions.

No justice, no peace said...

"What's black, and white, and red all over?"

This Daily Show does a story on the New York Times.

This is good, though you have to go through a brief commercial first.

Anonymous said...

I read that A Rod book--take it from me it may be worse than this Blog suggests. And, of course, after watching Roberts re the Duke case and reviewing this Blog it simply can't be trusted. BTW, unlike sportswriters such as Jeff Pearlman she is not much of a writer.

The back page of Sports Illustrated, until recently, had a wonderful weekly column by Rick Riley. Now they have a rotation of writers. None comes close to Riley--and none is worse than Roberts.

It might be fun for someone to analyze these awful SI columns. If anyone has a slow evening take a look. I guarantee you will be amazed at how much SI has declined.

gwallan said...

Anonymous @6/11/09 12:47 AM said...

Does anyone know how many copies of "Until Proven innocent" sold?

Bet KC does.

I know my local library in Bendigo bought a copy. I've kept an eye on the catalogue and noted it being "out" on several occasions. We truly do live in a global village.


JeffM @6/10/09 10:09 PM said...

I concede that a failure of the book to sell definitely hurts someone's pocketbook and that, under the current state of the law, no one can realistically hope for much more. However, without knowing what advance, if any, Roberts got, it is difficult to know whether the chief perpetrator or the merely complicit suffered. We can HOPE that there was no advance and that her time was utterly wasted, but such a hope assumes an intelligence on the part of publishers that my experience does not fully warrant.

Let's hope Selena hasn't spent it already. She shouldn't expect many more.

Anonymous said...

Simply stated, the abysmal book sales mean her career as an author is now stillborn - due primarily to her actions with respect to the Duke lacrosse case and her subsequent lies about what she had said.

This definitely hit her in the pocketbook. Today's pocketbook a little bit, future pocketbooks a lot.

Stated simply, from this date forward, no publisher will ever take a chance on a book she writes. She has shredded her own credibility.

All the best,

X

Anonymous said...

It is nice to see father time is catching up with some of these characters. There should be a follow up book to UPI that will tell of the demise of media members (oh, Nancy Grace must fall and hard), the Group of 88, Durham employees, Duke Admin, Precious and Kim, and then Reade, Colin and Dave on the winning side for accomplishing great things.

This blog and all the comments serve as a valuable asset to society by keeping these characters in the public eye. I really appreciate the work that goes into DIW and the insightful comments.