SwiftVets.com

[BC]

Anti-Kerry book selling swiftly in D.C. area
By Tim Lemke

THE WASHINGTON TIMES
From the Business section

A new book questioning the service of Democratic presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry as a boat captain in the Vietnam War is a swift seller.
Bookstores in the Washington area report that demand for "Unfit for Command: Swift Boat Captains Speak Out Against John Kerry" has been so strong that they are sold out of the book or are scrambling to order new shipments to keep copies on shelves.
"I can tell you it's selling very briskly and usually sells out as soon as we receive it," said Julie Wiggins, manager of the Borders Books & Music store in White Flint mall in North Bethesda. Ms. Wiggins said she could not release exact sales figures, but said the store has received at least three shipments of the book since its Aug. 11 release.
"Unfit for Command" is the top seller on Amazon.com and Barnesandnoble.com and is ranked third among nonfiction books this week on the New York Times' best-seller list.
The book by John E. O'Neill and Jerome R. Corsi features interviews with Vietnam veterans who question the accuracy of Mr. Kerry's recollection of his time as a Swift Boat captain. They say Mr. Kerry did not deserve the three Purple Hearts that he was awarded as a result of being injured in the war and are critical of Mr. Kerry's post-war comments charging atrocities by American soldiers.
The book has been a hot topic on cable news networks and talk radio because its accusations coincide with television advertisements produced by a group called "Swift Boat Veterans for Truth," of which Mr. O'Neill is a member. The ads -- and others sponsored by groups critical of President Bush -- have triggered debate over the influence of "527" advocacy groups, which are not officially affiliated with any candidates or bound to campaign-finance rules.
Barnes & Noble announced Monday that it had sold out of its original order of "Unfit for Command" nationwide, but is expecting new shipments this week. The book's publisher, Regnery Publishing Inc., cut Barnes & Noble's original order in half, the bookseller said.
Regnery, based in Washington, is one of the nation's largest publishers of books featuring conservative authors and commentators, including Patrick Buchanan, David Horowitz and Ann Coulter. It has printed 325,000 copies of "Unfit for Command" and plans to have 550,000 copies on order or in print by next week, spokeswoman Kelley Keeler said.
"The demand has been huge, tremendous," she said.
The Books A Million store in Dupont Circle received a shipment of about 100 books last week and already is waiting on another.
In Annapolis, the Hard Bean Coffee and Booksellers store immediately sold the first three copies it received last week and is waiting on a second shipment of 20 books, which it also expects to sell out.
"I've probably had 20 people ask me personally in the last week if we had it," said store manager Mary Flickner. "Those probably would have been sales."
But sales of the book are not brisk everywhere. At Politics and Prose Bookstore and Coffeehouse on Connecticut Avenue NW, shop managers said they have yet to sell any of the 39 books in the store. Ten people have requested the book but have not picked up their copies, and a shipment of 10 more is on the way, manager Shane Cagney said.
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[Steve Z]

Interesting. In some places, people can't find the "Unfit for Command" book, in others, it's not selling. That might depend on whether there are lots of veterans in a given area, or lots of liberals.

I have already read "Unfit for Command", but I plan to send another copy to my cousin, who served as an MP for 20 years, including Nicaragua and Bosnia. Where I live in CT, they had over 15 unsold copies in a Barnes & Noble store.

Maybe we have a distribution problem here--could the publisher be convinced to deliver most of the books to "swing states"?
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The traitor will crater!

[Jack Mclaughlin]

If you know that part of D.C. where bookstore with lots of copies is located as well as I do.you could better understand. Only liberals are allowed and if someone would walk out with Unfit for Command they be shot on the spot. I can personally attest that there are 10 fewer copies now at the Politics and Prose Bookstore and Coffeehouse on Conn. Ave. whose telephone number is: 202-364-1919...Will they be sold out by the end of the day?

[Steve Z]

If some of you are waiting "weeks" for books from Amazon.com, and I can get 10 or 15 of them from Barnes and Noble here in CT just by driving a mile down the road, maybe something could be set up so that people in "high-demand" areas can place orders to people in "low-demand" areas where the books are readily available, so that the books get out earlier, as in BEFORE THE ELECTION.

I'll let the moderators be the judge of whether this is a good idea, but maybe people in "blue" (Kerry) states can check their local bookstores, and if lots of books are available, they can get on the forum and let others in high-demand areas know how many books are available. Interested people in high-demand areas could then place orders to residents of low-demand areas, who would then buy the requested number of books from a local bookstore, and sell them at cost (book cost + sales tax + postage). This would cut down the delivery time to high-demand areas, and get more books into the hands of people who need them most, ASAP.

What do you think?
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The traitor will crater!