From Portfolio.com’s Jeff Bercovici (thanks to Tim for the link)
As of yesterday, “The Gawker Guide to Conquering All Media” had sold a scant 242 copies since it went on sale Oct. 2, according to Nielsen BookScan.
Of course, the tracking service only accounts for about 75 percent of book sales, by its own admission, so you can add another 81 units to that total. Still, it’s probably somewhat fewer copies than Simon & Schuster’s Atria division was hoping to sell when it acquired the total in what I’m told was a $250,000 deal. Especially when you consider all the the book got on Gawker.com, to what was presumably its target audience.
Having not read the book, I can’t vouch for whether or not it was worth a $250,000 advance. But from the outside, it does seem as though it would’ve been smart for Nick Denton’s Gawker Media to have maintained some sort of Vince MacMahon-esque exclusive personal services contract with each of the firm’s bloggers. The forthcoming, “Are You There God, It’s Me, Will Leitch” will certainly sell more than 323 copies in a month, though that tome’s author is certainly more of a brand name than anyone associated with Gawker if not Gawker itself.
Of course, there’s always the possibility that much the way Gawker’s traffic pales in comparison to the more sensational gossip sites, Deadspin could eventually find itself rendered a commercial non-entity by something more TMZ-ish. Keep in mind a) we’ve never seen Ben Maller and Perez Hilton in the same room before and b) “SPORTS BY BROOKS : The Movie” has a certain ring to it.
It’s a shame I actually graduated and won’t be around a college campus for Leitch’s book tour. The off chance that he would speak at my postsecondary institution(s) would be something to look forward to. I’m not ever expecting anything to top spotting the douchewad frontfuck from Five For Fighting taking a deaf girl back to the no-tell motel, but I’d love to plan to heckle the guy then not go and do something that’s actually fun.
It’s almost as if the entire premise of Conquering All (New) Media is accepting that print media is a rapidly dying medium and success cannot be measured in copy sales but in hits and advertising. Then again, I’m the kind of person that downloads music and waits for someone to give me a synopsis of new books.
If only for telling the story of the innovation behind Fleshbot (a porn site that is somehow completely impossible to masturbate to) this book’s natural audience should easily reach 500.
Name me one blogger book that was a big success and I’ll take back this comment. I actually wanted to buy the suck.com book, but I could never find it in stores back then.