America has spoken… and it sounds like they don’t want to hear from Hunter Biden.
At all. And this weekend, he’ll get his worst news yet.
In an era when even marginal political figures from both sides of the aisle routinely climb the best-seller list, the tell-all book written by the troubled son of President Joe Biden has flopped.
That might seem hard to believe.
Biden has been everywhere promoting “Beautiful Things: A Memoir.” He’s hit everything from the morning shows to late-night television to talk about his struggles with substance abuse including crack cocaine, and even a moment when he attempted to smoke parmesan cheese because it looked like crack.
The book also mentions – once, and in passing – the laptop linked to Biden full of lurid photos, desperate text messages, and shady emails.
But despite the wild claims and the wild headlines that no doubt caused heartburn in the White House, the book’s sales were dismal.
Publisher’s Weekly says first-week sales totaled just 10,638 copies. Heading into this weekend, the momentum has all but disappeared completely.
To put that in perspective, the number one nonfiction book the same week – “The Hill We Climb: An Inaugural Poem for the Country” by Inauguration Day poet Amanda Gorman – sold four times as many copies.
Number two on the list – “The Women of the Bible Speak: The Wisdom of 16 Women and Their Lessons for Today” by Fox News host Shannon Bream – had triple the sales of “Beautiful Things.”
Biden’s sales put his book into 12th place on the Publisher’s Weekly charts – and it’s likely going to plunge fast.
Showbiz411’s Roger Friedman, who also reported on the anemic book sales, showed just how quickly a book can sink.
“Last week, ‘Rock Me on the Water,’ a terrible book about cultural trends in 1974, hit the list after its ‘Sunday Morning’ plug,” he noted. “It’s gone this week.”
Biden’s book did open at number four on the New York Times best-seller on its release, although some wonder if that’s just more liberal bias at work:
Despite heavy promotion on CBS News and Jimmy Kimmel, Hunter Biden’s book sells just 10,600 copies – somehow enough to find itself #4 by the shady metrics that determine the New York Times’ Best Sellers List.https://t.co/woUrXh4WVz
— Steve Krakauer (@SteveKrak) April 15, 2021
However, a book’s first-week release includes all of its pre-orders – months and months of sales combined into a single “week” as far as the charts go – which can lead to vastly inflated first-week numbers.
Outside of the New York Times list – which will no doubt soon reflect the disappointing figures – the more constantly updated sales charts tell a different story.
It hasn’t cracked the Barnes & Noble top 100 hardcover books, and is ranked an anemic 40th on its “biography” list.
Over at Amazon.com, it’s also nowhere near the top 100. As of early Friday, it was closer to #800. It will drop further over the weekend.
It did place near the top of one category, however: It’s number three in “lawyer & judge biographies” — a category so limited that its bestseller remains Michelle Obama’s 2018 book, and number two on the list is 2015’s “Just Mercy” by Bryan Stevenson.
Part of Biden’s problem is that the pitch he made on his whirlwind media tour wasn’t exactly compelling.
When asked about the infamous laptop on CBS News, Biden stammered.
“Well, it’s, you don’t need a laptop,” he said. “You’ve got a book. The book, it’s all in the book. And I don’t know.”
He also allowed that it “could be” his laptop, before turning to the left’s favorite boogeyman, claiming “Russian intelligence” may have been behind the whole thing.
Late-night host Jimmy Kimmel gave Biden a pass for claiming he doesn’t know about the laptop.
“I’ve seen you on some interviews, you know, talking about the laptop … and when they asked you if that was your laptop, you say you don’t know, which is hard to believe unless you read the book,” Kimmel joked. “And then it’s like, I’m surprised you have shoes on.”
— Walter W. Murray is a reporter for The Horn News. He is an outspoken conservative and a survival expert.