DeSantis Book Hits No. 1 on Amazon, Expected to Outsell Trump, Obama Books in First Week, Publisher Says
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Florida governor Ron DeSantis’s new book, The Courage to Be Free: Florida’s Blueprint for America’s Revival, hit No. 1 on Amazon’s top 100 list on its release day and could have “the biggest first week in sales for any book by a sitting politician or presidential hopeful,” according to his publisher.
Eric Nelson, the vice president and editorial director of Broadside Books, tweeted on Tuesday that DeSantis’s book sales are “going to be bigger than the first week of sales for Ben Carson, Donald Trump, Joe Biden, and maybe even Barack Obama.”
Ron DeSantis's book may have the biggest first week of sales for any book by a sitting politician or presidential hopeful. It's going to be bigger than the first week of sales for Ben Carson, Donald Trump, Joe Biden, and maybe even Barack Obama. Anyone else I should look up?
— Eric Nelson (@literaryeric) February 28, 2023
Former president Barack Obama’s 2006 book, Audacity of Hope, sold 66,786 copies in its first week, according to Bookscan figures Nelson shared.
“It’s possible DeSantis could get higher than that first week based on the first two days of sales,” he said.
The sales come despite a widely publicized review in the New York Times that suggested the book “reads like a politician’s memoir churned out by ChatGPT.”
The book paints DeSantis, a Yale University and Harvard Law grad, as an everyman who was raised in a working class home with family ties to steel country Ohio and Pennsylvania that made him “God-fearing, hard-working and America-loving.” He describes summers spent working at a local electric company to help pay for college and feeling like a working-class outsider at Yale.
DeSantis takes on the media and the GOP establishment in the book and writes about his work in Florida, including pushing back against “draconian” Covid-19 lockdowns and fighting against indoctrination in schools.
He will kick off a book tour this week beginning in Venice, Fla. The tour will criss-cross the country as the governor flirts with a 2024 presidential bid. DeSantis will also headline two Republican fundraisers in Texas on Saturday before heading to an event for the GOP of Orange County, Calif., the next day. He’s set to give a keynote speech for the Alabama GOP next week.
