'Going Rogue' Outsells 'Living History' in First Week

From Joe Tirella of FOXNews.com: 

Sarah Palin, a favorite target of late night comedians and "Saturday Night Live" for more than a year, is having the last laugh. Her memoir, "Going Rogue: An American Life," has become the publishing sensation of the holiday season.

The 2008 Republican vice presidential candidate's autobiography has sold more than 700,000 copies in its first week of release -- including 300,000 on the first day alone.

Palin, a less-than-one-term Alaska governor, has even outstripped initial sales of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's memoir, "Living History." The former first lady moved 600,000 copies of her 2003 autobiography in its first week of publication. But Palin came up short against two-term President Bill Clinton, who sold 900,000 copies of his 1008-page tome, "My Life," in the first week.

On Tuesday, "Going Rogue" was the No. 1 bestseller on both Amazon.com and Barnesandnoble.com. It also was Amazon's No. 1 bestseller in several categories, including biography, history, and non-fiction. And after ordering an initial print run of 1.5 million, Palin's publisher HarperCollins said last week that it ordered an additional million copies.

Despite claims by Palin critics that her memoir would not make a profit because it has been so deeply discounted, Jim Milliot, the business and news director of Publisher's Weekly, told FOXNews.com that Palin's publisher is still likely to make at least $4 on every copy of her book it sells. and because sales of Going Rogue will soon surpass 1 million copies, HarperCollins will quickly earn back the reported $5 million advance it paid the 2008 GOP vice presidential nominee:

"I think it's safe to say this was a good investment for the publisher," says Milliot.

The publication and brisk sales of Going Rogue have not only made the former governor of Alaska financially independent, but the launch of the book is a vehicle for her to possibly rekindle her political career:

"This book has allowed her to reclaim her political narrative," says Robert Costa, a William F. Buckley Jr. Fellow at the National Review, who has been blogging about Palin's book. "She has reclaimed her own story by writing it."

- JP