The launch of Harvey Weinstein’s new book fails, with only 2,600 copies sold

“It’s a very poor debut for a book by a writer of this caliber, on a topic that was this important at the time,” NPD analyst Kristen MacLean told TheWrap.

Even in Martha’s Vineyard, where Weinstein spent the summer in a sprawling vacation home, the local Edgartown bookstore sold only three copies.

“If you want to know why I think it’s not sold out, I think people are staying away from the tough stuff right now,” Matthew Tombers, director of Edgartown Books, said in an email. “Since the invasion of Ukraine, customers [and I include myself] They wanted to get away from the difficult, [nonfiction] wrote”–especially those dealing with the ‘troubles of our time’.

When the studio mogul was exposed as a serial rapist and aggressor, a media vortex erupted into the business, permeating articles, podcasts, documentaries — and two hugely successful books. Olita, the veteran New York writer who profiled Weinstein in 2002, has finally published his own books this year.

Marketed as a deep look into Weinstein’s origins, Penguin’s Hollywood Ending: Harvey Weinstein and the Culture of Silence features exclusive interviews, new reports and correspondence with the man himself from his prison cell. But since the book hit shelves on July 12, it hasn’t gained any commercial momentum.

The movie Hollywood Ending did not break into the USA Today list of the 150 weekly bestsellers, nor did the New York Times bestsellers list. It is currently at #6,619 on Amazon Books and #18,465 on Barnes & Noble.com.

These numbers are even bleaker when compared to the runaway successes of two Weinstein books before them. Ronan Farrow’s “Catch and Kill” sold 44,611 copies in its first week alone, was close to 85,000 copies in its first three, and spent five weeks on the New York Times bestseller list. The song “She Said” by Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey sold 10,095 hardcover copies the week of their debut, and made the list for three weeks, with nearly 23,000 copies sold in that time.

Add to Auletta’s well-established record as a bestselling author and a promotional campaign that included a sit-down interview for CBS Sunday Morning and other notable newspapers, and the plot heightens. In an industry as unpredictable as book publishing, timing is everything.

“[Auletta] is a popular media reporter,” noted Ed Nawotka, book editor and international editor at Publishers Weekly. But this is the third book on a story, once people feel they have a solution to it. [it]Maybe not as much saliva.”

Although it contained “new and accurate” information – including that of one victim a description From Weinstein who was so hideous that it went viral (it had something to do with his member’s shape) – “Hollywood Ending” seems to lack the “breaking news” quality that sent similar headlines fluttering off the shelves in 2019.

“The problem is [that people] Nawotka said. “I don’t want to say that people don’t care, but they may not feel that it is worth the $35 that they will have to spend to figure out what those nuances are.”

This year’s numbers point to the same conclusion. In the wake of the social and political turmoil of 2020 (an exceptional year for non-fiction adults) and last year’s pandemic-fueled sales boom, the book market has plummeted. Overall, “adult literature is not selling well this year, particularly in these current-event areas,” MacLean said, noting that some subcategories have fallen below 2019 levels. This year’s escape from reality, and there’s not much appetite for some of the heaviest political topics or current events.”

Even titles backed by a “vigorous launch campaign,” like “Hollywood Ending,” struggled to reach or hold bestseller status for several weeks.

Furthermore, print publishing has been hit hard in the years since Weinstein’s story first appeared. Thanks to inflation and paper mill closures during the pandemic, production and shipping costs have increased, driving up prices for cardboard-bound books. “Hollywood Ending” sells for $30 in most bookstores.

Although the number of copies ordered by publisher Penguin remains unknown (the company does not share advance sales forecasts), “it will not have [been] Maclean said.

But Nawotka, Publishers Weekly’s editor, doesn’t see it as a failure. “It’s not great, but it’s not terrible,” he said. “It’s not dead in the water.” To be fair, sales rebounded a bit in its third week, hitting 690 from 375 in the previous week.

While the book certainly doesn’t make it to any best seller lists, Penguin might gain something in the long run.

“What you pay for a book is not necessarily one thing. You pay for a relationship with the author,” Nawotka continued. “There are a lot of additional benefits from working with someone as reputable as Ken Olita, on [a] A topic as big as the Harvey Weinstein scandal, even if you don’t explicitly sell the books. “

This does not mean that the fate of “Hollywood Ending” is doomed. A social media boom could translate into a boom in sales, as happened with old books that went viral “BookTok.” Weinstein hasn’t made the headlines yet.

Olita’s book fell off shelves a month after the New York Supreme Court upheld his 23-year sentence. On October 10, he will face 11 counts of rape and sexual assault in a Los Angeles trial, and is likely to get his name back on the line.

MacLean agreed, “If there are events in the future that bring it to the fore again, they will sell again, or they will sell in response.” “This book will never be out of print.”

What does “Hollywood Ending” say, if anything, about the future of #MeToo for stories? For example, publishers put a great deal of stock in “company titles,” or books on similar topics, when deciding what to bet next.

“This tends to be an affiliate market, meaning if a great book about vampires is published, you will see a lot of vampire books published,” MacLean explained. “But also, if you see a book that was expected to do great in an area and surprise the underperformers, I’m sure that was taken into account.”

However, Nawotka believes there are many, many #MeToo stories waiting to be told: “The question is, does the public have an appetite for it?”