'Tears of a Clown' not flying off the shelves

Who's crying now? Via Smitty, we hear that Dana Milbank's book, a hit-piece on Glenn Beck, is selling very poorly. Milbank disputes that:

The Washington Times’s Jennifer Harper reported Wednesday that the sales of Dana Milbank’s new book on Glenn Beck, “Tears of a Clown: Glenn Beck and the Teabagging of America” were “tepid” and “in the hundreds” two weeks after publication.

A source in the industry gets specific with POLITICO about just how tepid: 914 copies the first week, and 663 copies the second, according to Bookscan. (Bookscan accounts for about 70 percent of books sold, and does not count e-books.)

That’s around 5 percent of the 38,700 books printed. Milbank told the Times that reports of weak sales were “absurd” and pointed out that he’s been on The Washington Post political best-seller list and was leading a couple Amazon categories. “That said,” he said. “I highly doubt it’s selling like a Glenn Beck book.”

But he has been employing a nearly Beckian knack for cross-promotion, with the Washington Post excerpting, reviewing and nodding to his book frequently over the past few weeks.

And certain meanies are having fun on with it on Twitter: #sellingbetterthanmilbank

I posted something on the book last weekend, including the incredibly ugly cartoons of Beck that accompanied the Post's lengthy excerpts, in case we weren't absolutely clear about where they stand on Beck. 

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