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Thursday June 24, 06:29 AM
Clinton Memoir Sets Record for First Day Sales
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Bill Clinton's memoir "My Life" set a
record for first day non-fiction sales with 400,000 copies
bought in the United States, the former president's publisher
said Wednesday.
With Clinton's 957-page tome selling so well on its first
day, publisher Alfred A. Knopf said it has ordered another
725,000 copies from printers in addition to an initial print
run of 1.5 million copies.
"This is a record-breaking number for a work of
non-fiction," said Sonny Mehta, president of the Knopf
Publishing Group, adding that sales were "exceedingly strong"
in other countries too.
In addition to the book sales, Knopf said Clinton racked up
first day audiobook sales of 35,000.
"My Life" was published on Tuesday amid a media blitz which
saw Clinton give several high-profile television interviews and
appear on the cover of Time magazine.
While the first review of the book from The New York Times
called the memoir "sloppy, self-indulgent and often
eye-crossingly dull," reviews on Wednesday were mixed.
"The book is messy and long-winded. Clinton dodges enough
questions to raise his detractors' blood pressures into stroke
range. There's enough policy wonkiness and political minutiae
to set half the planet asnore," the Detroit Free Press wrote.
"But there's a wonderful naturalness to Clinton's writing
in 'My Life' and enough insights into this puzzling man that
it's well worth plunking down $35," the newspaper said.
The Times of London was less forgiving.
"Anyone who buys 'My Life' for their own holiday is going
to be as disappointed as Monica Lewinsky," the newspaper wrote.
"Only in the pre-publication interviews does he even explain,
in the now famous phrase, that he had sex with his intern
because he 'could."'
Clinton was reportedly paid a $10 million advance by Knopf.
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