Stuart Elliott: Flap Over "Fire and Fury" Echoes Another Book Decades Ago

First and foremost quotFire and Furyquot demonstrates that the forbiddenfruit strategy still worksamp160 Though neither Wolff nor his publisher Henry Holt is proclaiming quotIt39s the book Donald Trump doesn39t want you to readquot that phrase is lodged in almost everyone39s mind thanks to the scorchedearth attacks by Trump and his surrogates against the book and its authorTrump39s frantic tweets against quotFire and Furyquot coupled with the assaults by minions such as Stephen Miller Sebastian Gorka and Anthony Scaramucci are incendiary enough on their ownamp160 But when his lawyers sent a ceaseanddesist letter to try and halt publication it was quotLook out bestseller list here comes Wolffquotamp160 And indeed the book now is sold out across the country on Meet the Press the New York Times journalist and author Mark Leibovich asked only halfkiddingly quotIs it possible to go any higher than No 1 on Amazon if you39re going to write a bookamp160 I mean this is just it39s incrediblequotTrumpworld39s offensive against quotFire and Furyquot is more consequential than previous campaigns against media output by organizations such as the Parents Television Council or the National Legion of Decency condemning TV shows or moviesamp160 Trump may not realize that what he39s seeking falls under the category of presidential prior restraint which is unconstitutional a fact we39re being reminded of these days by the movie about the Pentagon Papers The PostSpeaking of which how long will it be before a promotional team at 21stamp160Century Fox makes hay over a request from the Trump administration to screen The Postamp160 That sounds like an entry from one of my fanciful quot20 Questionsquot columns but like so many other actual events these days it39s stranger than fictionThe forbiddenfruitful publicity bonanza that has benefited quotFire and Furyquot reminds me of the fiery fury over another book about an occupant of the White House quotThe Death of a President November 20November 25 1963quotamp160 That book written by the historian William Manchester became a runaway hit after Jacqueline Kennedy who had asked Manchester to write the book about her assassinated husband sought to prevent publication unless he agreed to make her proposed changes in the manuscriptThe battle was the subject of frontpage headlines quotBitter New Row on Bookquot the New York Post blared in late 1966 and early 1967 and Manchester like Wolff decades later appeared on Meet the Pressamp160 Mrs Kennedy her image dented by the dispute decided to settle out of court with Manchester who acceded to some revisionsAn early beneficiary of the publicity was Look magazine which had paid 665000 for serial rights to publish excerpts from quotThe Death of a Presidentquotamp160 It was difficult to find the four issues with those excerpts newsstand sales soared from their regular level 500000 to 2 millionamp160 Look39s publisher Thomas R Shepard Jr calculated that average readership hit 53 million a record audience at the time for any magazine or television seriesAnd when quotThe Death of a Presidentquot came out in book form in spring 1967 it quickly attained bestseller status moving 600000 copies in the first two months and more than a million copies by the summerIt will be fascinating to see how in an era of screens quotFire and Furyquot will compare saleswise but it39s a safe bet to speculate that and it39s hard to believe I39m writing this sentence Trump will end up walking in Mrs Kennedy39s footstepsamp160 She quotsucceeded in publicizing the very things she did not want publicizedquot the author Cleveland Amory wrote after the legal contretemps was resolved quotfar beyond any publicity they would ever have had if she had not suedquotIt39s tantalizing to wonder if Wolff learned any of the tricks of the productmarketing trade during his year as editorial director of the trade publication Adweek and adweekcomamp160 Asked on Today if the prepublication publicity is helping the book Wolff puckishly replied quotWhere do I send the box of chocolatesquotNot only is Trump selling books Wolff added his reactions are quothelping me prove the point of the bookquotWolff39s tenure at Adweek in 201011 was controversial as so many of his stints in the Manhattan media landscape have been and ended amid some acrimonyamp160 But as Wolff often has done he subsequently landed on his feet writing for publications such as USA Today and The Hollywood Reporter before deciding to tackle the Trump White House in quotFire and FuryquotCleverly even the title of the book is a reminder of another way to peddle products known as borrowed interestamp160 Just as marketers seek to capitalize on interest in major news events to generate attention for their ads quotFire and furyquot was a phrase uttered by Trump himself a threat he made in August of what would await North Korea if it endangered the United StatesClick the social buttons above or below to share this story with your friends and colleaguesThe opinions and points of view expressed in this content are exclusively the views of the author andor subjects and do not necessarily represent the views of MediaVillagecomMyersBizNet Inc management or associated writers

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Stuart Elliott: Flap Over "Fire and Fury" Echoes Another Book Decades Ago

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Stuart Elliott: Flap Over "Fire and Fury" Echoes Another Book Decades Ago

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