Clinton book breaks records on first day of sales
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AP
Thursday, June 24, 2004
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NEW YORK (AP) - He's no Harry Potter, but Bill Clinton is still a record breaker.
Clinton's My Life sold more than 400,000 copies in the United States on its first day of release, the most ever for a nonfiction book and double the believed previous record holder, Sen Hillary Rodham Clinton's Living History.
The former president's publisher, Alfred A Knopf, announced an additional printing of 725,000 copies, bringing the total to 2.25 million. More printings are likely.
"We are seeing exceedingly strong sales for My Life not only across the country but around the world," Knopf president Sonny Mehta said in a statement yesterday.
Clinton's book has topped the Amazon.com best-seller list in the United States, England, France and Japan. The audio book, an abridged version read by Clinton, sold 35,000 copies in the United States, also a first-day record.
Still, the unchallenged king of book premieres remains Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, which sold an estimated five million copies on its opening day last year.
The 957-page My Life was published Tuesday, with thousands lining up in New York alone to receive an autographed copy from Clinton, who appeared at bookstores in Harlem and Rockefeller Centre. Some fans camped out on the concrete the night before and later endured driving rain as they waited to meet him.
Most reviewers think his book is a bore, but Clinton will almost certainly earn back his reported $10 million advance, and the print run for My Life already approaches that of Living History, which came out last year. Sen Clinton's book has 2.3 million copies in print, according to her publisher, Simon & Schuster.
My Life is actually helping sales of Living History, which on Tuesday reached the top 10 on Amazon.com. Demand is also high for the audio book and large-print edition of My Life, both of which have spent several days on the Amazon.com top 10.
The large-print edition of My Life has a first printing of 100,000, more than the regular print run for most books.
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