Major retailers reportedly selling Palin's Going Rogue below cost
Sarah Palin's memoir Going Rogue: An American Life has garnered attention in part because of the number of copies sold before publication. But the book has been offered at below-cost prices from major online retailers, and Newsmax has used the book as a loss leader to promote its magazine, potentially inflating the book's sales.
Amazon, Walmart.com, Target.com in price war over book
Walmart.com dropped price from list price of $28.99 to $10, then to $9 and below as other retailers matched it. On October 15, Walmart.com began offering preorders of Going Rogue, along with nine other new book releases, for $10. After Amazon.com reportedly matched the price, Walmart.com "str[uck] back, slashing its prices to $9" [AOL Daily Finance, 10/16/09]. Amazon also dropped its price to $9 [Buzzflash.com, 10/19/09]. Target.com joined in the price war, prompting Walmart.com to drop its price further [The New Yorker, 11/9/09]. By November 5, Walmart.com was selling the book for $8.98, Target.com was selling it for $8.99, and Amazon was selling it for $9. The respective retailers were still selling the book at those prices as of November 16. All three retailers give the book's list price as $28.99. Screen shots of the November 5 prices are below:
Newsmax offering book for $4.97, or free, as promotion for magazine
Newsmax ties book offer to its magazine. As early as October 2, according to a Newsmax email sent to its mailing list, the right-wing website offered Going Rogue for $8.95 along with four free issues of Newsmax magazine, a price later dropped to $4.97. The offer links to a page on the Newsmax website explaining that there is a $5.95 shipping and handling charge for the book, and if the subscriber fails to cancel the magazine after the free subscription runs out, the "subscription will renew automatically at the low annual price of $39.95 by charging [your] credit card or [your] checking account." Newsmax also offered Going Rogue for free with the purchase of a $49.95 one-year subscription to Newsmax magazine. Additionally, Newsmax has promoted its Going Rogue deal in commercials on Fox News. From a Newsmax commercial appearing during the November 5 edition of Fox News' The Live Desk:
ANNOUNCER: Sarah Palin has electrified America. Her new book, Going Rogue, is already a runaway best-seller, and it's not even in stores yet. Now, Newsmax.com has an incredible offer for you. You can receive Sarah Palin's new book for just $4.97, a savings of $24 off the cover price. Plus, you'll get four months of the award-winning Newsmax magazine absolutely free. This special offer won't last, so call 800-NEWSMAX today.
Book reportedly being sold below cost
Selling below cost is part of "loss-leader" strategy. AOL Daily Finance reported that "Publishers ordinarily offer current titles to retailers at a discount of between 40% and 50%. A bookstore spends up to $12.50 to sell a $25 hardcover, which it buys directly from the publisher or through distributors like Ingram or Baker & Taylor" [AOL Daily Finance, 11/4/09]. As a result of the current online price war, The New Yorker stated, "Amazon and Wal-Mart are surely losing money every time they sell one of the discounted titles. The more they sell, the less they make." The New Yorker continued:
Amazon and Wal-Mart hardly seem reckless, though. So why did they go to war? The answer is that they didn't, really. Sure, Wal-Mart is making a statement that it's a player in the online world, but the real goal of this conflict isn't to lure readers away from Amazon, and it isn't to get people to buy one of those ten books. It's to lure them online, away from big booksellers and other retailers, and then sell them other stuff. Usually, price wars wreak havoc because they erode the pricing power of an entire business. But, because this price war involves just ten items, its impact on revenue will be small, and outweighed by the positive effects of all the publicity. (It has garnered publicity because it involves books. A big banana price war has been raging in Britain, but you probably haven't heard about it.) It's textbook loss-leader economics. [The New Yorker, 11/9/09]
I considered it a pretty reasonable cost for a roll of toilet paper.
On the other hand, lashing out against such a person, for no apparent reason other than Palin being on your team, does demonstrate a lack of objectivity.
They just jacked up the price to $14.50.
Ok.
Thanks for monitoring this, although I can go to lots of web sites to view the performance of this book.
The analysis on this issue is HALF. The other HALF of this analysis would be to compare and contrast this to other high-performing books...were the same tactics being used? That answer is YES...so this is not some sort of epiphany.
Nothing to correct, either. In fact, it would be reasonable to note the LOGIC that if this book wasn't popular, then it wouldn't be such a "loss leader" tool! Why does my Kroger flyer (a large grocery store chain in case you don't know) have a front-page color advertisement for the latest Dan Brown book, hardcover for only $10??? BECAUSE THEY WANT PEOPLE TO BUY GROCERIES AND PEOPLE WANT DAN BROWN BOOKS.
No monitoring, analyzing or correcting needed.
2. The methods of selling Palin's books are relevant because the sales record is certain to enter any media dialogue about Sarah Palin, the 2012 race, the audience for conservative media, etc. How those numbers got to be there is an important caveat to any of those discussions, and thus part of Media Matters' mission.
If I didn't know that SP would benefit financially from it, I would buy a copy @ $9 for amusement purposes (gag gifts, some light fiction reading, etc). I suspect others might do the same.
The truth is these really aren't Best Sellers in the traditional sense of lots of people buying them who really want to rwad them. They are best sellers only i,n the sense that there have been huge upfront orders for them - giving the illusion that lots of people really want to read them when that is not true. It is very rich ultra right wingers forking up the big bucks to sway public opinion.
Once the sales numbers have been jacked up artificially, and the Right Wing author, (Ann Coulter, Jerome Corsi, Carrie Prejean, etc.), gets to hit the talk show circuit as a "best selling author", the sales fiction rapidly disintegrates into the reality of all those unwanted books being dumped into discount bins and online gift offers.
The point is that Palin has not really written a best seller. The sales numbers do not reflect an accurate number of people who really care what she writes; it only reflects the willingness of the extreme right-wing to prop up her numbers with their own money. If libraries all over the country weren't buying her book, sales would be even more paltry.
All these ultra right-wing authors would never make any list at all if it weren't for the Richard Mellon Schiaffes and Rupert Murdochs who fund them.
Sad but true.
In a couple of weeks, they won't be able to give her book away. And that will still be more than she deserves, considering the upfront money she got and the free publicity she continues to get.
-- price wars wreak havoc because they erode the pricing power of an entire business -- New Yorker
That's why we should get the federal and state govts. out of the business of telling us what kind of health insurance we must buy and who we can buy it from.
In the world of govt. bureaucracy no one would be able to pay less than $25-30 for Palin's book and we would only have the choice of a couple of sellers.
A way to lower healthcare insurance costs is to do exactly what the New Yorker and mmfa rail against...letting private industry compete for our business.
After all, in the words of the New Yorker that were trumpeted by mmfa...this competition will "erode the pricing power of an entire business"...can you say lower healthcare insurance rates?
Let's deregulate the medical insurance industry and let them do the free market thing. Hell, we'll even let them compete across state lines! All the competition drives prices lower and quality of service higher! Incredible!
But then the competition takes it's toll and companies start to fail. Mergers and take overs occur. This is a primary law of free market economics. Don't bother to dispute it.
Now, there are only a dozen insurance companies left. Maybe less. In the whole country. They wield power, money and influence that today's insurance companies can only dream about.
Suddenly, service starts to decline and premiums go back up because the lack of real competition is gone pretty much forever. Whoops! "pre-existing conditions" are everywhere!
"We should regulate this!" people cry! Too late. The insurance lobby is unassailable now.
Congratulations wesley and dex. Your short sighted "the free market fixes everything!" approach has led to a national disaster.
That is simply not true, Dex. Surely not with the physicians that I know. They would much rather deal with Medicare reimbursments than with insurance reimbursements. Every doctors' office has at least a couple of women dedicated to doing nothing but going back and forth with insurance companies to see what they will or will not cover.
Boy, you sure swerved into the truth with that comment...unwittingly making the case for promoting competition between insurance companies instead of the failed case of a "highly regulated, monopolized market".
One can often find himself in the deep end of the pool when relying on democrat talking points as a substitute for cognitive thinking.
If you ever take macroeconomics, you'll learn a thing or two about how capitalism actually works.
Many industries are not purely competitive. There is a scale between complete monopolization, and complete competition.
Health insurance, for a variety of reasons, cannot exist in a purely competitive market. There are significant barriers to entry in the health insurance market, i.e. you need a large amount of capital to start an insurance company. And like other public-service-for-profit industries, it is essential that our democratic institutions monitor and regulate their behavior to ensure that the public interest is reasonably well served. This is also true of public utilities, for example.
This is why we have a government, to make sure WE THE PEOPLE aren't getting screwed. Unfortunately, many of our elected representatives represent corporate interests before the public interest.
You seem to support that model, that of a government by, for, and of the corporations. The people have rejected that model. You lose.
Comparing health care to a pamphlet co-written by a washed-up cult leader in order to explain the free market. I give it two barely-opposable thumbs up.
My apologies for dumbing down the analogy to explain the free market system...and offending the sensibilities of liberal brainiacs.
Please feel free to skip those kind of dumbed down analogies in the future...they are meant for those duped by mmfa and liberal advocates...not for the real deep thinkers like yourself.
Now I've got to get back to finishing that new wing for my hall of fame.
Actually, it's still too intelligent for most reichwingers to understand...
There is no true market price for healthcare. If there is, then there would never be universal coverage. A market price dictates that not everyone will be able to afford the product. That's kind of how a market price works. So, in a free market system there will never be universal coverage. In fact, the free market would deny care to those who cannot afford it. That's fine if that is your argument, but just have the courage to make that argument. I do not think the American people are with you on it.
You mean to say private industry hasn't been competing for our business?
The current competition is miniscule...only a few competitors in each state...regulated by the states.
Private health insurers will have newfound incentives to streamline their administrative operations, provide better services and control premiums if they intend to retain and increase their rolls. They can still make a profit, but they will have to run a tighter ship. See, competition DOES help everyone. But for the insurance companies, who are dead set against having to share the market with an honest broker.
You lose again.
Even if you manage to get these companies to compete for business, (of which I am doubtful), the system does not really come anywhere close to capitalism as most customers (patients) do not even know the prices and relative prices of what they are having done. It is a wacked out system that does not really have any of the features you would expect in a capitalistic society. The feedback mechanisms simply aren't there and there is no way to put them there easily.
Having said that, when it comes to Palin and her book I have to say...WHO CARES!? Come on, Media Matters. Is she really that important at this point? She is an opinionated blogger and nothing else. If you are interested in quitting your job or losing an election, you should consult her. Otherwise, she is becoming increasingly irrelevant. I can take a few stories a week on her. But a day? Too much for me.
Yeah, I need some good firestarter.
It's still funny. It'll probably be priced at about its BTU value as furnace fuel by the New Year. Meanwhile, it ought to be good a a good cheap gag gift this holiday season.
Sarah Palin uses little Trig to deflect criticism and to drum up interest in her Barbara Walters interview today.
(This is stomach churning.)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Had a great conversation today with Barbara Walters regarding America’s special needs community.
(Completely transparent attempt to appeal to her audience's compassionate nature.)
Her compassion for those who some in our society see as “less than perfect” comes from personal experience as she was so close to her sister. Barbara wrote lovingly about her sister in her #1 bestselling memoir titled, Audition.
(This is laying it on thick even by Sarah Palin standards. Surely people are not buying this?)
Barbara and I even attempted to interview Trig during this segment, but he was about as patient through the interview as any other one-and-a-half-year-old child!
(What? They "attempted to interview" a 19 month old toddler with Down's Syndrome? This little boy is almost completely deaf and has virtually no ability to communicate.
I doubt he has very many words in his vocabulary, if any, and he could not even begin to respond to even the simplest of questions!
This is the sickest pimping of a special needs child that I have ever seen!)
I appreciate Barbara highlighting America’s special needs community. The beautiful heart of our country shines when we embrace these precious ones. Knowing of their unconditional love and need for our embrace reminds me every day of what really matters in this world.
- Sarah Palin
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
That entire passage made me ill to my stomach! I thought I had seen Sarah Palin at her worst, but I stand corrected. In the words of a friend of mine 'There is no bottom to how low she will go."
http://theimmoralminority.blogspot.com/
Seriously, you should be ashamed for writing that.
While on the subject of pimping children....
no it isn't....it's what they do.
But it's hard to tell whether MMFA is being purposely dishonest or are just that ignorant when it comes to the book business.
On policy I would say they are purposely dishonest, but they probably are genuinely stupid on business.
And, which are you, Dick?
No wonder you love Palin. She's at your grade level.
If you can stomach the h8ters over at the Bluff Po, their "Media" page is FOX and Palin 24/7/365. How does it go "when you're taking flack, you know you're on target"
Randy
It is not like she has made a substantive contribution to humanity!
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