Obviously no one bothered to educate Caribou Barbie...

[OMG]

There seems to be a lot of back and forth between Kaz and others. I read it, and it seems both are correct (talk about taking a central view I'd be horrible in Gov lo,). I think the book would sell well no matter what as Kaz said. I also think Palin had a big advantage with with the Conserv network that can buy the book in bulk and give it away as "gifts" or a very discounted price. She not the first Conserv writer to do that, there is almost a tradition for Conserv writers to have a lot of bulk buys of there book. I don't really see this done as much with any other group/types of books.

I got a sibling who works at a place that sells books (but not a bookstore) so she can order anything she wants to the store name and buy it herself with employee discount which is very close to publisher price (I think that's what it's called, the price the store buys the book) Who I think might be the top candidate in getting me this book for Christmas as a laugh. Well for her anyway.

Speaking of having a laugh. Really got a kick out of your people who visit the store list Kaz. I wonder if you will start hearing "The gag gift" reason more often, which is a real reason as it's a tradition that I have been doing with friends and family for a while (pick a name and give them a gag gift) which will probably fall under your third category. The last example is just strange lol, I've done the put the book behind others, but that is when there was not many left and was checking out if another book was in and that first book was "my backup" just incase my first choose wasn't available and not wanting somebody else to get it my backup choice. I've seen the 30% off sticker thing over her face, at first time I saw that I thought it was funny but then again I find silly stuff funny at times. But yeah hiding the book away is lame, be more original, put it next to an apocalypse book and put a sign saying "If you like this, you will also like this" with arrows pointing at both of them

As for your top seller list, I know it's common for Amazon for example to have discount prices compared to cover price that is sold at book stores because they don't have the overhead bookstores have. But for bookstores to start selling it with 30% off, is that normal? Or being discounted that much in the first week. (Not sure if the others in your top amazon list, how long they been out and had that discount in first week also)

[HB3]

Wow!

November 24, 2009
The Wilding of Sarah Palin
By Robin of Berkeley

When I was in college, I read a book that changed my life. It was Susan Brownmiller's tome, Against Our Will: Men, Women, and Rape, which explained rape as an act of power, not just lust. What I found particularly chilling was the chapter on war -- how rape is used to terrorize a population and destroy the enemy's spirit.

While edifying, the book magnified the vulnerability I already felt as a female. Fear of rape became a constant dread, and I sought a solution that would help shield me from danger.

The answer: seek safe harbor within the Democratic Party. I even became an activist for feminist causes, including violence against women. Liberalism would protect me from the big bad conservatives who wished me harm.

Like most feminists, it was a no brainer to become a Democrat. Liberal men, not conservatives, were the ones devoted to women's issues. They marched at my side in support of abortion rights. They were enthusiastic about women succeeding in the workplace.

As time went on, I had many experiences that should have made me rethink my certainty. But I remained nestled in cognitive dissonance -- therapy jargon for not wanting to see what I didn't want to see.

One clue: the miscreants who were brutalizing me didn't exactly look Reagan-esque. In middle and high schools, they were minority kids enraged about forced busing. On the streets of New York City and Berkeley, they were derelicts and hoodlums.

Another red flag: while liberal men did indeed hold up those picket signs, they didn't do anything else to protect me. In fact, their social programs enabled bad behavior and bred chaos in urban America. And when I was accosted by thugs, those leftist men were missing in action.

What else should have tipped me off? Perhaps the fact that so many men in ultra left Berkeley are sleaze bags. Rarely a week goes by that I don't hear stories from my young female clients about middle aged men preying on them. With the rationale of moral relativism, these creeps feel they can do anything they please.

What finally woke me up were the utterances of bitch, witch, and monster toward Hillary Clinton and her supporters early last year. I was shocked into reality: the trash talk wasn't coming from conservatives but from male and female liberals.

I finally beheld what my eyes had refused to see: that leftists are Mr. and Ms. Misogyny. Both the males and the females don't care a whit about women.

Women are continually sacrificed on the altar of political correctness. If under Radical Islam women are enshrouded and stoned and beheaded, so be it.

My other epiphanies:those pony tailed guys were not marching for abortion rights because they cherished women's reproductive freedom. It was to keep women available for free and easy sex.

And the eagerness for women to make good money? If women work hard, leftist men don't have to.

Then along came Sarah, and the attacks became particularly heinous. And I realized something even more chilling about the Left. Leftists not only sacrifice and disrespect women.

It's far worse than that: many are perpetuators.

The Left's behavior towards Palin is not politics as usual. By their laser focus on her body and her sexuality, leftists are defiling her.

They are wilding her. And they do this with the full knowledge and complicity of the White House.

The Left has declared war on Palin because she threatens their existence. Democrats need women dependent and scared so that women, like blacks, will vote for liberals.

A strong, self sufficient woman, Palin eschews their protection. Drop her off in the Alaskan bush, and she'll survive just fine, thank you very much. Palin doesn't need or want anything from liberals, not hate crimes legislation that coddles her, not abortion, which she abhors.

Palin is a woman of deep and abiding faith. She takes no marching orders from messiah like wannabes, like Obama.

And so the Left must try to destroy her. And they are doing this in the most malicious of ways:

By symbolically raping her.

Just like a perpetuator, they dehumanize her by objectifying her body. They undress her with their eyes.

They turn her into a piece of ass.

Liberals do this by calling her a c___t, ogling her legs, demeaning her with names like "sexy flight attendant," and "Trailer Park Barbie," and exposing her flesh on the cover of Newsweek.

And from The Atlantic Magazine's Andrew Sullivan: "Sarah Palin's vagina is the font of all evil in the galaxy."

Nothing is off limits, not actress Sandra Bernhard's wish that Palin be gang raped or the sexualizing of Palin's daughters.

As every woman knows, leering looks, lurid words, and veiled threats are intended to evoke terror. Sexual violence is a form of terrorism.

The American Left has a long history of defiling people to control and break them. The hard core 60‘s leftists were masters of guerilla warfare, like the Symbionese Liberation Army repeatedly raping Patty Hearst. Huey P. Newton sent a male Black Panther to the hospital, bloodied and damaged, from a punishment of sodomy.

The extreme Left still considers themselves warriors, righteous soldiers for their Marxist cause. With Palin, they use sexual violence as part of their military arsenal.

Palin is not the only intended victim. As the book, Against Our Will described, the brutality is also aimed at men. By forcing men to witness Palin's violation, the Left tries to emasculate conservative men by rendering them powerless.

The wilding of any woman is reprehensible. But defiling a mother of five, with a babe in her arms, and a grandmother, is particularly obscene. It is, of course, Palin's unapologetic motherhood that provides fuel to the leftist fire.

Because, as a mother, and a fertile woman, Palin is as close to the sacred as a person gets. She is not just politically pro life. Palin's whole being emanates life, in stark contrast to the darkness of the left, the life despoilers.

These "progressives" are so alienated from the sacred that they perceive nothing as sacred. And they will destroy anyone whose goodness shines a mirror on their pathology. The spiritually barren must annihilate the vital and the fertile.

It has been almost two years since I woke up and broke up with liberalism. During these many months, I've discovered that everything I believed was wrong.

But the biggest shock of all has been realizing that the Democratic Party is hardly an oasis for women. Now that it has been infiltrated by the hard Left, it's a dangerous place for women, children, and other living things.

In the wilding of Sarah Palin, the Left shows its true colors. Rather than a shelter for the vulnerable, leftists will mow down any man, woman, or child who gets in their way. Not a movement of hope and change, it is a cauldron of hate.

From Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Hatred paralyzes life; love releases it. Hatred confuses life; love harmonizes it. Hatred darkens life; love illuminates it.


In these dark times, with spiritually bankrupt people at the helm, thank God we have bright lights like Sarah Palin to illuminate the darkness.

http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/11/ ... palin.html

[Cherry Kelly]

Going back a few pages... regarding killing of predatory animals. It has gone on for decades and often becomes necessary to curb population of these type of animals.

Related some time ago. Around here we had a coyote problem. They were killing calves, foals, chickens, etc. to the point where their population was too extensive. When a small cattle farmer loses 3 calves and has two cows so badly damaged he has to destroy them - due to coyotes, it is a problem. In the same area, two young foals were killed and one mare so badly injured she had to be put down. These were registered quarter horses. Another small farm gal lost half her laying flock. If it weren't for my stallion, I too would have lost a foal when coyotes came through here. He kicked one so much it died in a neighbors driveway. We did organize with help of local game warden and got rid of the majority of the coyotes.

When predatory animals become too populated there comes a time when man must take action.

===
back to Palin and her book. There are many congress critters who would love all the media attention to THEIR books.

[Corvid]

Going back a few pages... regarding killing of predatory animals. It has gone on for decades and often becomes necessary to curb population of these type of animals.

(snip)

When predatory animals become too populated there comes a time when man must take action.
===

And when man (a voracious predator) become too numerous perhaps it is time for animals (or mother earth) to take action.

Defend the right to arm bears!

[Psychicwolf]

And when man (a voracious predator) become too numerous perhaps it is time for animals (or mother earth) to take action.

Defend the right to arm bears!

Hear, hear!
We are the interlopers on their space, IMO. It is man that must learn to live with the animal kingdom, unless you believe the biblical drivel that we have "dominion" over the beasts.

I live in an area with a lot of predators, and I constantly look for ways to minimize my "footprint" in THEIR domain. I am the guest in their territory and as such, try to make myself as polite a guest as possible.

[Live365]

A few years ago I found a mouse in my kitchen garbage can, and after a significant struggle I got it into a bag and put it out on the deck, figuring it would just run away and find a home more suitable than my kitchen. The next morning, however, I went out to find the mouse still on the deck, frozen to death. I still have nightmares about it. That’s how much of a huntress I am. But in these parts the problem is deer, which is particularly challenging this time of year when they mate. For all the human complaints about what deer do to cars, you’ve not seen hell until you seen a mutilated but still alive deer on the side of the road, writhing in pain and gasping for breath. And when police arrive at the scene, the one and only response is to put a bullet through the head in mercy. Once deer-hunting season opens – and there are even some towns in Iowa that permit hunting within city limits for this very reason – the problem decreases by several logs. Mankind has been hunting since he stopped throwing rocks at the moon and learned how to make spears instead. It is what it is, Guys.

Thank you, Kaz, for your exquisite response to my earlier query. But I can’t let it go. It’s been addressed in this thread, and yes. On AM talk commercials are appearing that offer Sarah Palin’s book for $4.95 plus shipping, but hurry because supplies are limited. Its mass marketing to boost sales. I don’t see how it can be denied. Look, I know there are people who are interested in reading this thing, but where are they. Britney Spears records used to top the charts for months, but I have yet to meet a person over the age of fifteen that actually owns one. It’s all too pat. In a bleak time any way, Sarah Palin releases a book and it awakes a nation. A year and a half before its time to announce for 2012. In twenty years time, there have been only two people who made me turn away from being a Republican: Barack Obama, and Sarah Palin. The former out of belief, the latter out of terror. But the one thing I always trusted about Obama – master politician or no – is that at least he was the captain of his own ship. There are forces behind Palin that are larger than any of us can imagine. And that’s what’s so frightening.

[HB3]

Mass marketing does boost sales. Obviously. But if it's a product no one actually wants, that will quickly wane. This is complicated by the fact that everything is basically a "flash in the pan" at this point. The public has no memory. Nothing lasts. But they wouldn't have increased the print run from 1.8 to 2.1 million if they didn't feel they could get rid of them.

Insisting the book is really a secret crypto flop just comes off as silly. Everything about her must be disputed. The more interesting question is why.

Here's a less incendiary version of the same viewpoint above:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/opi ... le1372198/

Including:

Ms. Palin is in the hurricane's eye again with the publication of Going Rogue. The Associated Press assigned no fewer than 11 reporters to “fact check” Ms. Palin's memoir, a concentration of scrutiny AP would never presume to exert over the man who's actually in the White House. Elements of the press mock and scorn her with a fury that is near inexplicable. Rather fewer extol her gifts. But pro or con, the media cannot get enough of her.

Professional feminists despise her, view her with unhinged contempt, as witness this classic assessment of academic Wendy Doniger: “Her greatest hypocrisy is in her pretense that she is a woman.” Dutiful “progressives,” otherwise windsocks of sensitivity and nuance, revile her in the crudest, most extravagant terms. The intensity of their hostility, its unbridledness and dreadful tastelessness (the speculations on the birth of her Downs syndrome child) is an unwitting measure of her power.

A truly dumb and witless person would not have the demure columnist David Brooks hissing dismissively, angrily in fact, on a Sunday morning talk show that Sarah Palin “is a joke.” Poor Mr. Brooks gets intellectual hives just thinking about her. Empty vessels do not inspire such venom and fury.

Ms. Palin is a real and evolving element in the great story of American politics. She is the “other half” of the Obama moment, and she may be in the ascendant. Mr. Obama is losing his lustre, his appeal is dimming, at the very moment the Alaskan outsider is staking her claim. Those who call her a joke are expressing an anxious hope not offering a rational description.

Ms. Palin has rare gifts and stamina enough to give them play. She is the second most outstanding figure on the great stage of American politics.

[Live365]

Ms. Palin has rare gifts and stamina enough to give them play. She is the second most outstanding figure on the great stage of American politics.

As one who, on the second hand, has been equally disturbed by the volcanic hatred for this woman, you had me until the last paragraph, HB3. But don't tell me this doesn't send at least one shiver down your spine......

[Kaztronic]

Hey Live,

I am at work, so will have to be very brief. I wanted to quickly address a point you raised, the $4.95 copies of "Going Rogue" - as this has been much ballyhooed in this thread.

You know the saying, "If it sounds too good to be true"?

Well, those commercials are obviously directed at her fan base, not the general public - to underline this point, where are those ad's airing? Not on Air America I'm guessing.

Anyway, while thinking that through the other night, and while reading posts that simply seem determined to paint this book a flop, at the expense of an obvious reality that we've all acknowledged before (her millions of fans), we'll I decided to pursue the $4.95 sale angle and see if the "too good to be true" saying of old held-up.

My recommendation is to take a look at the Newsmax site and follow the links to the free, or $4.95 copies of "Going Rogue". Once you're done adding the $5.95 shipping and handling fee, and the magazine subscription that you're likely to get stuck with (after the obligatory 4-month trial you are required to sign up for ends), well, the book ends up being a bit pricey all things considered.

It's the classic definition of a loss leader, aimed at a very specific community.

I'll talk more when I get home, and I definitely want to respond to OMG as well.

Very glad we're having this chat

[Joolz]

We did organize with help of local game warden and got rid of the majority of the coyotes.

Did you shoot them from the air?

[Live365]

You make very good points, Kaz, and yes, the commercials are airing anytime between Laura Ingahram in the morning and Mark Levin at night (you see my drift), intermingled with commericals for how necessary it is to buy gold to save yourself from socialism and where the best deals on Ford F150's are. So your argument is very well taken!!

[Rombaldi]

I think Robin Williams summed it up last night...

(paraphrased.. get the exact text later)

"When was in school, Sarah Palin had to be the person voted least likely to write a book and most likely to burn one..."

[racehorse]

intermingled with commericals for how necessary it is to buy gold to save yourself from socialism

For whatever reason, buying gold over the last few years has proven to be a very good investment.

Not sure it will continue to be for much longer, though.

"Buy low, sell high".

[Live365]

"Buy low, sell high".

But they also say: "if you're in debt, buy now. Buy now, if you're in debt. Are you in debt? Buy now! Buy now!"

To say nothing of the weight-loss products............

[Kaztronic]

As for your top seller list, I know it's common for Amazon for example to have discount prices compared to cover price that is sold at book stores because they don't have the overhead bookstores have. But for bookstores to start selling it with 30% off, is that normal? Or being discounted that much in the first week. (Not sure if the others in your top amazon list, how long they been out and had that discount in first week also)

Just getting home and settling in, can give a quick answer to this question in the meantime (I'll hit the institutional bulk sales bit later, after I eat - it's an excellent point, and absolutely does come in to play, but the real impact of it - as decribed here - comes in to play later on in the life cycle of the book).

Yes, it is normal for bookstores to put books in to what we refer to as the "Instant best-seller" category, which leads to aggressive discounting of the title on it's first day of release.

For example, today Dean Koontz, James Bradley, and Michael Crichton (posthumously) all had new book releases - you will find that all three are discounted between 30% & 40% immediately upon their release.

With big new releases, it is all about fighting for foot traffic as these types of books are considered destination titles - books that people specifically come in to a store looking for, as opposed to those who are simply browsing.

That is why you see such aggressive discounting on big new releases right out of the gate. The books are discounted specifically because there is a presumption of success with these titles, not because we want to unload them (we have a different process for that).

If anyone is interested, I could offer a technical explanation as to why the aggressive discounting of the new Palin release indicates the exact opposite of any attempt to unload the title because it is a weak release - but honestly, with the exception of you, Live365, and HB3, I don't get the feeling that people want to hear that kind of news when it comes to this book, the conversation here indicates something else, and I can't quite put my finger on it - it's almost a "reality be damned" kind of thing, a touch of the "cognitive dissonance" argument that HB3's article above mentions (I don't know that I agree with the rest of that article however, a few points perhaps, but I think HB3 get's it right by acknowledging it being "incendiary" - in my opinion, incendiary to a fault that overshadows an otherwise interesting topic).