Book Notes From The Wall street Journal

A couple of book notes from the WSJ... 

Jeffrey Trachtenberg and Michael Phillips have written that book sellers are hoping that Going Rogue goes gold:

Sarah Palin's memoir, "Going Rogue: An American Life" will likely be a mega-seller when it hits bookshelves next month, a shot in the arm for the book business and perhaps also for the former Alaska governor's unorthodox political career.

Harper, an imprint of News Corp.'s HarperCollins Publishers, said it has received media inquiries from major TV and radio talk shows and is teeing up a major promotional schedule. "Going Rogue" has an initial print run of 1.5 million copies, the same number at the late Sen. Edward M. Kennedy's memoir, "True Compass."

"Right now it's our top preorder online," said Kathryn Popoff, vice president of trade books at Borders Group Inc. "They may feel one way or another about her, but they will want to read about her."

And on the WSJ's Washington Wire blog, Trachtenberg posted that the publisher of Sarah: How a Hockey Mom Turned Alaska’s Political Establishment Upside Down by Kaylene Johnson is hoping to see additional sales thanks to the release of Going Rogue:

The book... was published originally in May 2008, by Epicenter Press, based in Kenmore, Wash. Kent Sturgis, president, says that the biography sold 13,000 hardcovers and 80,000 paperback copies. Demand was so great that Sturgis subsequently teamed up with Tyndale House Publishers Inc., a larger publisher, for a subsequent paperback edition.

[...]

"We do anticipate a bump in sales, a coattail effect," he said.

- JP