CNN Anchor's Book Launch Not Off to Hot Start Despite Non-Stop Promotion: Report
A cynic might say that working at CNN offers unique experience in peddling fiction to a small audience. If so, then CNN anchor Jake Tapper has put that experience to good use.
According to RadarOnline.com, an entertainment and gossip website, Tapper’s latest novel, “All the Demons Are Here,” sold fewer than 5,000 copies in its first week on the market.
The book recorded dismal sales despite relentless promotion from actors and other media figures.
In fact, Tapper’s own Instagram page features a veritable collage of promotional screenshots from CNN and elsewhere.
“All the Demons Are Here” takes place in 1970s Washington, D.C., so one might expect that it would appeal to readers inside the Beltway.
In an interview published last week by Axios, Tapper promoted the book’s setting as one of its intriguing features.
Still, readers took little notice. RadarOnline.com described the sales figures as “shockingly low.”
Tapper, who hosts “The Lead with Jake Tapper” on CNN, has sold books in the past. His first novel, “The Hellfire Club” (2018), debuted at No. 3 on the New York Times Best Sellers list for Hardcover Fiction.
If Tapper seeks comfort, he need only look to other books that have bombed far worse than his.
In 2022, for instance, Democratic Rep. Cori Bush of Missouri published a political memoir entitled “The Forerunner: A Story of Pain and Perseverance in America.” In its first two weeks on the market, the book sold 1,017 copies.
Bush, however, must have felt like Stephen King compared to Darlene Superville and Julie Pace, who co-wrote a book about first lady Jill Biden. In its first week on the market, “Jill: A Biography of the First Lady,” sold 250 copies.
Meager book sales do not always have simple explanations.
When the authors and/or subjects of those books have dubious relationships with the truth, however, one hopes that the reading public recognizes as much and punishes them for it.
On the other hand, Tapper has a platform and connections that should help his book succeed.
CNN appeals to affluent liberals with woke sensibilities. Its viewers certainly have the means to purchase Tapper’s book.
Those viewers also have a demonstrated appetite for works of imagination.
If “All the Demons Are Here” proves to be a good read, then more readers eventually will find it.
If not, then early returns show that Tapper cannot rely on sales from celebrity promoters or from CNN’s dwindling audience.
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