Marketing - Written by William Hobson on Monday, February 22, 2010 9:50 - 0 Comments
Right-wing critic sends anarchist manual sales soaring in US
“All publicity is good publicity” is a well known phrase in marketing. News pundit Glenn Beck, however, doesn’t appear to be familiar with the phrase. After describing a book as “quite possibly the most evil thing I’ve seen”, the hyperbolic right-wing presenter has helped boost a French anarchist revolutionary manual to the top of best-seller charts.
The book, The Coming Insurrection was written by an anonymous collective in France who call themselves The Invisible Committee. Describing itself as a ‘call to arms’ it is a radical leftist publication that has been branded a manual for terrorism by the French Government. In 2008, four men and five women referred to as ‘The Tarmac Nine’ were arrested in France for far-left terrorism, with the government alleging that one of the nine was the author of the book.
However, despite this official opposition, The Coming Insurrection has, according to The Guardian, sold thousands in France. Last August it was published in the US by a small Californian printer, Semiotext(e) with an initial run of just 3,000.
Thanks to Glenn Beck of Fox News though, the book has hovered around the top 10 of the Amazon US bestseller charts for the last week. In a broadcast of his extremely popular commentary programme, Beck brandished a copy of The Coming Insurrection and said “This is quite possibly the most evil thing I’ve ever read….the story is written by 12 people. Some of them are in jail now over in Europe. They’re actual communists. They’ve been masquerading as democratic socialists. ‘Oh we’re not Marxists, we’re not communists, we’re like you…this is evil stuff…in it there’s one chapter on how to destroy the family.”
Since the broadcast, the self-described “prescription for an emergent war-machine to spread anarchy and live communism” has rocketed from its sub-400 mark on the Amazon.com charts to a high of seventh place, dropping to 12th on the 19th of February and currently at 34.
Semiotext(e) has capitalised on Beck’s words; they are now circulated by the publisher as part of its promotional material for the book. Speaking in US magazine Publishers Weekly, Rebecca Schrader of distributor MIT press said that sales spiked every time Beck mentioned the title. “We’re having trouble keeping stock in the Warehouse and we’re dealing with reprint quantities that we don’t see every day” she said.
Related posts: