Andrew Cuomo Continues To Cash In On His Memoir

From the Associated Press:

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo has already made more than $500,000 on his recently published memoir and now a recently filed financial disclosure suggests he can expect at least $150,000 more.

The disclosure, filed Friday with the state, shows the Democratic governor expects to make between $150,000 and $250,000 this year off the book. The memoir, entitled "All Things Possible: Setbacks and Success in Politics and Life," was published by HarperCollins last fall.

Cuomo's tax returns show he earned just under $377,000 for the book. The year before he made an $188,000 advance.

Cuomo's taxes also showed he made nearly $169,000 as governor and had some modest income from investments.

Cuomo's book is currently ranked 645,459 at Amazon.

As of April, there were just a little over 3,000 copies sold - and 13 audiobooks.

$377,000 + $188,000 + 150,000 - 3,000+ books sold  = a bribe from Rupert Murdoch.

Of Course The News Corp Book Deal With Cuomo Was A Bribe

Sometimes it's fun to go back and look at something you wrote in the past and see if you were right.

Back in 2014, I wrote this over the news that Andrew Cuomo would be paid $700,000 for a book he was supposed to write for HarperCollins, the Rupert Murdoch/News Corporation-owned publisher:

How many copies of this book do you think Harper Collins sells?

Do they think there's a readership out there for Andrew Cuomo's memoir?

Or maybe they think fans of Chris Cuomo will buy it?

Andrew Cuomo has the reputation for being one of the biggest asses in politics.

I can't imagine the book sells more than a few thousand copies at best.

So why did Murdoch give Cuomo at least $700,000 in compensation for this memoir?

Notice when the contract with Harper Collins was signed - right after his first year in office.

That was when Cuomo and Harper Collins Rupert Murdoch were still best buds (as demonstrated by how Murdoch flack Fred Dicker treated Cuomo in the NY Post.)

Even then, Murdoch had to know that few copies of this book would be sold.

This was a bribe from Murdoch to Cuomo in the form of a book contract.

I can't wait for the book to come out and see how many copies get sold.

I suspect this Cuomo memoir will be up there as a loss-leader, along with Murdoch's other great loss leader, the NY Post.

Then, when it was revealed that HarperCollins was going to run 200,000 copies foe the first printing, I wrote this:

A 200,000-copy first run?

Just who is Harper Collins (owned by Rupert Murdoch, btw) planning to sell this book to?

Let's assume Cuomo's family, friends and loved ones buy some copies.

Let's assume too that suck-ups who work for him buy some.

Let's assume Billy Joel takes $30 out of his drinking fund and buys a copy too.

And let's assume Cuomo's consort, Sandra Lee, forces people in her coterie to plunk down the money for the book to try and drive some numbers.

How many copies sold is that?

Now I've been watching the Hillary Clinton book sales closely, because she got a huge printing for her book too - much bigger than Sheriff Andy got actually, and her sales have not been too good.

Here's Politico on June 17:

Officials with Hillary Clinton’s publisher, Simon & Schuster, insist her book has fared well amid reports of weak sales, and that it’s succeeded despite a dramatically altered retail landscape since her last memoir.

The book sold roughly 100,000 copies from the Tuesday when it was released through the following Saturday, according to a Simon & Schuster source. The source added that the book, titled “Hard Choices,” is debuting at No. 1 on the Indie Bestseller List, which reflects sales at independent bookstores.

The 100,000 figure for “Hard Choices” includes pre-orders and e-books, the publishing sources said. Those figures get rolled into the first-day sales.

The New York Times best-seller list, which will be released Wednesday, is another metric people are watching to see how the memoir is faring.

The first 1 million copies printed of the book were pre-ordered by bookstores, although that figure does not reflect how many were bought by customers.

...

 People close to Clintonland also said the market for books has changed greatly since “Living History,” noting the closure of several hundred Borders bookstores and dozens of Barnes & Noble outlets.

Not a great start for a book that got a $14 million advance.

And it's gotten worse since:

There’s hand-wringing and finger-pointing at Simon & Schuster over the soft performance of Hillary Clinton’s “Hard Choices,” for which she got a $14 million advance, sources said — and which was replaced at No. 1 on the best-seller list this week by an “exposé” about Hillary and Bill Clinton.

The former secretary of state’s tome sold 161,000 copies in its first three weeks, according to Nielsen BookScan — but 85,000 of those were sold in the first week. That number has dropped sharply to 48,000 and 28,000 in subsequent weeks, with the most recent numbers due out Wednesday.

Simon & Schuster shipped an optimistic 1 million copies to stores. Hillary reportedly got $8 million for her last book for the publisher, “Living History,” which sold 438,000 copies in its first week and more than 1.15 million overall.

Adding insult to injury, the new book was pushed from the No. 1 spot on the New York Times best-seller list this week by Edward Klein’s story of the Clintons’ pained relationship with Barack and Michelle Obama, “Blood Feud.” A source close to Hillary has blasted the book, along with its author, as “dastardly” and a combination of “pathological lying, hate and just flat-out creepiness.”
“There’s lots of finger-pointing going on at Simon & Schuster” over the very expensive Clinton deal, a source told Page Six.

Another insider said sales of 161,000 for “Hard Choices” would be “OK” for a normal book without such a big advance and expectations. “It’s an OK number — it’s very solid — a good amount to sell in three weeks,” the source said. “And the book is $35, significantly higher than most.” Also, BookScan only measures 85 percent of the print market, and not e-books.

A rep for Simon & Schuster did not respond to a request for comment. Reports have said the early numbers for “Hard Choices” reflect that it will not sell enough to cover Clinton’s advance, or to sell the million copies shipped, which are sent on consignment, with unsold copies ultimately going back to the publisher.

Now that's the Murdoch-owned NY Post ragging on Simon & Schuster for the absurd $14 million advance they handed Clinton for a book that not too many people planned on buying.

But the Murdoch-owned Harper Collins is likely going to have a mini-disaster on its own hands with the Cuomo book, because it's hard to see how if Hillary Clinton could only sell 161,000 copies of "Hard Choices," Andrew Cuomo is going to sell 200,000 first-run copies of “All Things Possible: Setbacks and Success in Politics and Life.”

Now I dunno, maybe all the Chris Cuomo groupies out there go out and buy the book and make me eat my words, but I just have a difficult time seeing the $700,000 advance and the 200,000-copy first run printing from Murdoch's Harper Collins as anything other than payback for Cuomo's corporate-friendly policies as governor, in particular Cuomo's pro-charter policies which Murdoch loves.

Murdoch has long been known to use his media outlets to reward friends and punish enemies - he keeps the NY Post open and operating despite its losing hundreds of millions of dollars for just that purpose.

I can't see any business reason why Harper Collins would pay Cuomo $700,000 in advance for his book and print 200,000 copies in the first run other than paying him back for stuff Sheriff Andy did that Rupert liked.

So far, Cuomo has sold less than 3,000 books of the 200,000 copy first printing.

He's disclosed $188,000 in payments from HarperCollins on his finance forms, though we do not now whether he's going to get additional payments for the book despite the poor sales because he refuses to release the contract.

All of this matters because Cuomo is in the middle of taking on the legislature over ethics reform, including increased disclosure of lawmakers' outside incomes, while he refuses to be transparent on his own.

Cuomo says he doesn't have to disclose anything because he's not subject to the same kind of corruptive influences that legislators are - except that David Sirota at IBTimes reported on Wednesday that the Cuomo administration was lobbied on multiple issues by News Corporation both before and after Cuomo signed his $700,000 book contract with the News Corp-owned HarperCollins.

The book deal Cuomo got from News Corporation starts looking an awful lot like a quid pro quo arrangement and/or bribe from News Corporation to Cuomo when you see that the corporation got millions in tax breaks and other goodies out of Cuomo.

How is that different than former Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, now under indictment for corruption, taking bribes and kickbacks?

NT2 says it's not in their latest post called "Monetizing The Office":

“Shelly was paid 700k and Andrew was paid 700k. What did they do for that money?”

“Silver facilitated referrals to a law firm and Cuomo wrote a book.”

“Both of them monetized their office.”

“Nah. That can’t be.”

“Really? Would Cuomo have got a book deal without being Governor? Of course not.

Nobody would read a book about him if he wasn’t Governor.”

“Well, nobody seems interested in the book anyway,” we quipped.

“Cuomo personally received $700,000 or more for doing what? He didn’t write that book. You know that. He’s politically smart, but he’s not a reader or a writer. His staff wrote the book for him and that’s another problem.”

“But lots of governors do the same thing.”

“And lots of legislators are rainmakers. You can make the case that Cuomo’s monetizing of the Governor’s office was more egregious than Silver’s because he used staff to do it and it produced less value.”

“Produced less value?”

“Silver received 700k, right? That was for generating referrals for the law firm. And what was the value of the referrals? If he got one mesothelioma case, it might have been worth 100k to the law firm. If he got two it was worth 200k. We don’t know how many referrals he generated.  Maybe it was half a dozen. Maybe it was a hundred. But you know there was some value generated. Now think about Cuomo. He and his government staff produced a book that was worth what?  Well, the book tanked. That means that Cuomo was paid $700,000 for nothing of value.”

“Isn’t this just a bad decision by the publisher? They thought his book would sell. They took the risk on it and they were wrong. That’s the nature of their business.”

“That’s true. But how did the book deal come together. Did he write it and show it to them. No. He got a huge advance and that advance looks like a sweetheart deal. He got a huge up front payment. He’s getting a cut rate on purchases of the book that he can then provide to his supporters for promotional purposes. He also benefits from the promotion of the book by the publisher. He’s making out like a bandit. He monetized his office, didn’t he?”

“When you say it like that, it’s hard to disagree.”

“And we haven’t even mentioned the other side of it. What benefits accrued to the publisher? How did News Corp. benefit? Nobody has looked at that. Nobody has gone back 10 years like Preet did with Silver. What did Cuomo do in office as AG or as Governor that benefitted News Corp.  Silver directed a grant to a hospital for cancer research in 2005 and they called it a bribe in 2015. What did Cuomo do for News Corp during the last 10 years? I’ll bet you could find something, no?”

“This can’t be.”

“This is the world we live in. If Preet can make a case against Silver, he can make a case against Cuomo.”

I'm still skeptical that US Attorney Preet Bharara is going to do to Cuomo what he did to Silver, but it sure seems if Bharara decides to dig into Cuomo's business dealings with News Corporation, he'll find plenty of interesting items to scrutinize.

This News Corp/book deal stuff is in addition to the Moreland tampering that Preet is allegedly looking into already, as well as the subpoenas to donors that Cuomo's secretary, Larry Schwartz, had "pulled back" by the Moreland Commission even as they subpoenaed legislative targets.

Cuomo's pushing ethics reform this budget, claiming he'll shut the government down if the legislature doesn't give him what he wants on ethics reform (i.e., ethics reforms that pertain only to the legislature, not to statewide officials like the governor.)

Here's hoping the feds shut Cuomo himself down with a 7 AM visit and a car ride to central booking over all the criminality he's engaged in.

If they could get Silver on this stuff, you can bet they can get Cuomo too.

But will they?

Cuomo Sells Less Than 1,500 Copies Of His Memoir In First Two Weeks Of Sales

No wonder Governor Andrew M. Cuomo wants those quarantined for Ebola to spend their time in Cuomo captivity reading his book - no one else is:

Sales of Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo’s memoir fell by more than 43 percent to 535 copies in its second week on shelves.

Mr. Cuomo’s latest book, “All Things Possible: Setbacks and Success in Politics and Life,” sold 945 copies in the week after its Oct. 15 release, according to BookScan, a subscription service that tracks sales at over 80 percent of book vendors in the United States but does not include e-books, which can increase sales by about 15 percent.

Rupert Murdoch's Harper Collins paid Cuomo $700,000 in advance for his book.

The book is already headed to remainder status, with Amazon charging $18.33 for it, Barnes and Noble $18.51 for it.

The cover price was $30.

Looks like Harper Collins is going to have to keep the book on sale through the next millennium to recoup the $700,000 they handed over to Cuomo as a bribe, er, advance for the book.

And let's not forget that they spent more money on the PR too - including "renting" Cuomo's donor list.

Alas, even Cuomo's political donors don't seem to want to buy the book.

Sales dropped 43 percent after Team Cuomo sold the list to Harper Collins.

On the plus side, Cuomo can commiserate with Christine Quinn about low book sales.

She too wrote a shiny little memoir back in 2013 before her mayoral run that nobody bought and fewer read.

Time For The Press To Put Andrew Cuomo On Notice

Jimmy Vielkind at Capital NY explains how Il Duce Cuomo hides his political fundraising records:

ALBANY—The administration of Governor Andrew Cuomo has refused to release details about the governor's political fund-raising, stating more than six months after Capital requested records under the Freedom of Information Law that it considers anything not posted on his pre-edited public schedule to be "exempt" from public disclosure.

Cuomo's prodigious fund-raising has netted nearly $45 million since he was elected in 2010, and has drawn scrutiny this electoral season from Republicans and Democrats alike. Capital requested schedule records that would have offered details on Cuomo's Hollywood junket in late January as well as another event in Albany last September.

The administration delayed for four months, before closing the request without stating a justification. Only when Capital's attorneys began contacting Cuomo's aides did the administration offer a reason for withholding the documents—that they are simply drafts meant for internal use. The aides then waited several more months before denying the request.

An independent arbiter, the state's Committee on Open Government, last week gave an opinion last week that the administration was beyond its rights in denying Capital's request. Now, a Cuomo spokesman says the records will be released "in the coming days."

Vielkind goes on to write that the Capital NY experience in trying to get the records of Cuomo's Hollywood junket is not an "isolated experience," that Cuomo "has repeatedly delayed or denied requests for information from journalists and advocates."

Cuomo's starting a press tour today as PR rollout for his book.

It would be nice if somebody in the press would ask him about his lack of transparency on camera while he tries to talk about his book.

Same goes for all the meddling he does in his supposedly independent commissions and panels.

Probably not going to happen, but if it does, I bet he won't react well - as seems to have happened at an off-the-record dinner with some Times journalists:

In February, Governor Andrew Cuomo and others from his office had dinner at a restaurant in Midtown with several New York Times journalists: Albany bureau chief Susanne Craig, Albany reporter Thomas Kaplan and deputy metro editor David Halbfinger.

It was meant to be the type of off-the-record bread-breaking that politicians are known to have with the people who cover them—except at some point things went sideways. Before the meal concluded, according to sources with knowledge of the meeting, Cuomo became visibly angry, raised his voice and stormed out of the restaurant.

Melissa DeRosa, a spokeswoman for Cuomo, disputed this characterization while confirming that the dinner took place.

"We cannot discuss this as we respect the rules of off the record conversations," she said.

...

While it's unclear why exactly the dinner went south, the governor has publicly acknowledged his rocky relationship with the Times, most recently in an interview with the Times itself, pegged to the release of his memoir, All Things Possible: Setbacks and Success in Politics and Life, on shelves tomorrow via HarperCollins.

I suspect it will be all niceties on camera, but it sure would be nice to get Cuomo to have a ferret moment if somebody presses him on something he doesn't want to answer.

Last thing I would note here.

Does Andrew Cuomo really think he can run for president with this insane need for control he exhibits?

Cuomo's Memoir "Shelved" Indefinitely, Victim Of Moreland Mess, Cuomo Micromanaging

Gee, who didn't see this coming after the Moreland mess this summer?

Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s plan to launch his presidential bid with an inspiring autobiography — the way Barack Obama did with “Dreams of My Father” — has gone haywire, partly because the micromanaging governor doesn’t have enough time.

“It’s a disaster,” said one source. “This could be one of those books that is never finished.”

The HarperCollins book’s original ghostwriter and editor were replaced after several months of work. It’s now likely that Hachette’s unauthorized “The Son Also Rises: A First Biography of Andrew Cuomo,” by Vanity Fair writer Michael Schnayerson, will be published first.

One of Cuomo’s bigger problems is dealing with US Attorney Preet Bharara’s investigation into why Cuomo shut down his anti-corruption Moreland Commission before it had a chance to accomplish anything.

“Who’s going to want to read an inspirational book about how Cuomo got where he is when he is under investigation?” one editor wondered.

Another source said Cuomo is too busy putting out fires to work on his memoir because of problems with two of his top advisers. Howard Glaser, who had been with Cuomo since his days at HUD, left in June. Larry Schwartz, who handled the Moreland shutdown, has been mothballed by the Bharara probe.

“So there’s no one there. Andrew’s running his own show. He needs some help,” my source said. “Because there is no one guiding him, he’s now micromanaging the book himself.”

Going to be a swell second term, with Cuomo's henchmen either jumping ship or under criminal investigation and Cuomo having to run things himself.

And that's assuming that Cuomo himself isn't indicted for Moreland.

Who Is The Intended Audience For Andrew Cuomo's Book?

State of Politics:

The publication of Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s forthcoming book “All Things Possible: Setbacks and Success in Politics and Life” is being pushed back from August to Sept. 16, according to this publisher HarperCollins.

The Wall Street Journal reported this morning the book will receive a 200,000-copy first print — an unusually large run.

The book’s cover, also, was switched from a picture of Cuomo standing in front of a wood-paneled wall to a tighter portrait shot of the governor.

Cuomo’s financial disclosure forms and publicly available income tax records show the book deal is worth at least $700,000.

A 200,000-copy first run?

Just who is Harper Collins (owned by Rupert Murdoch, btw) planning to sell this book to?

Let's assume Cuomo's family, friends and loved ones buy some copies.

Let's assume too that suck-ups who work for him buy some.

Let's assume Billy Joel takes $30 out of his drinking fund and buys a copy too.

And let's assume Cuomo's consort, Sandra Lee, forces people in her coterie to plunk down the money for the book to try and drive some numbers.

How many copies sold is that?

Now I've been watching the Hillary Clinton book sales closely, because she got a huge printing for her book too - much bigger than Sheriff Andy got actually, and her sales have not been too good.

Here's Politico on June 17:

Officials with Hillary Clinton’s publisher, Simon & Schuster, insist her book has fared well amid reports of weak sales, and that it’s succeeded despite a dramatically altered retail landscape since her last memoir.

The book sold roughly 100,000 copies from the Tuesday when it was released through the following Saturday, according to a Simon & Schuster source. The source added that the book, titled “Hard Choices,” is debuting at No. 1 on the Indie Bestseller List, which reflects sales at independent bookstores.

The 100,000 figure for “Hard Choices” includes pre-orders and e-books, the publishing sources said. Those figures get rolled into the first-day sales.

The New York Times best-seller list, which will be released Wednesday, is another metric people are watching to see how the memoir is faring.

The first 1 million copies printed of the book were pre-ordered by bookstores, although that figure does not reflect how many were bought by customers.

...

 People close to Clintonland also said the market for books has changed greatly since “Living History,” noting the closure of several hundred Borders bookstores and dozens of Barnes & Noble outlets.

Not a great start for a book that got a $14 million advance.

And it's gotten worse since:

There’s hand-wringing and finger-pointing at Simon & Schuster over the soft performance of Hillary Clinton’s “Hard Choices,” for which she got a $14 million advance, sources said — and which was replaced at No. 1 on the best-seller list this week by an “exposé” about Hillary and Bill Clinton.

The former secretary of state’s tome sold 161,000 copies in its first three weeks, according to Nielsen BookScan — but 85,000 of those were sold in the first week. That number has dropped sharply to 48,000 and 28,000 in subsequent weeks, with the most recent numbers due out Wednesday.

Simon & Schuster shipped an optimistic 1 million copies to stores. Hillary reportedly got $8 million for her last book for the publisher, “Living History,” which sold 438,000 copies in its first week and more than 1.15 million overall.

Adding insult to injury, the new book was pushed from the No. 1 spot on the New York Times best-seller list this week by Edward Klein’s story of the Clintons’ pained relationship with Barack and Michelle Obama, “Blood Feud.” A source close to Hillary has blasted the book, along with its author, as “dastardly” and a combination of “pathological lying, hate and just flat-out creepiness.”
“There’s lots of finger-pointing going on at Simon & Schuster” over the very expensive Clinton deal, a source told Page Six.

Another insider said sales of 161,000 for “Hard Choices” would be “OK” for a normal book without such a big advance and expectations. “It’s an OK number — it’s very solid — a good amount to sell in three weeks,” the source said. “And the book is $35, significantly higher than most.” Also, BookScan only measures 85 percent of the print market, and not e-books.

A rep for Simon & Schuster did not respond to a request for comment. Reports have said the early numbers for “Hard Choices” reflect that it will not sell enough to cover Clinton’s advance, or to sell the million copies shipped, which are sent on consignment, with unsold copies ultimately going back to the publisher.

Now that's the Murdoch-owned NY Post ragging on Simon & Schuster for the absurd $14 million advance they handed Clinton for a book that not too many people planned on buying.

But the Murdoch-owned Harper Collins is likely going to have a mini-disaster on its own hands with the Cuomo book, because it's hard to see how if Hillary Clinton could only sell 161,000 copies of "Hard Choices," Andrew Cuomo is going to sell 200,000 first-run copies of “All Things Possible: Setbacks and Success in Politics and Life.”

Now I dunno, maybe all the Chris Cuomo groupies out there go out and buy the book and make me eat my words, but I just have a difficult time seeing the $700,000 advance and the 200,000-copy first run printing from Murdoch's Harper Collins as anything other than payback for Cuomo's corporate-friendly policies as governor, in particular Cuomo's pro-charter policies which Murdoch loves.

Murdoch has long been known to use his media outlets to reward friends and punish enemies - he keeps the NY Post open and operating despite its losing hundreds of millions of dollars for just that purpose.

I can't see any business reason why Harper Collins would pay Cuomo $700,000 in advance for his book and print 200,000 copies in the first run other than paying him back for stuff Sheriff Andy did that Rupert liked.

Murdoch Company Pays Andrew Cuomo At Least $700,000 For His Memoir

Okay, this is absurd:

ALBANY—Gov. Andrew Cuomo's book deal with HarperCollins is worth at least $700,000, according to a disclosure form Cuomo filed last week.

The publishing house is planning to release Cuomo's autobiography, “All Things Possible: Setbacks and Success in Politics and Life,” in August. Cuomo's 2013 tax returns showed $188,333 in income from the book, but the governor's aides said $35,127 of that advance was spent on “representation and legal fees associated with the book.”

A disclosure form filed last week with the state's Joint Commission on Public Ethics reflects that payment, and shows Cuomo is due between $550,000 to $650,000 in additional, deferred compensation. A Cuomo spokesman would not immediately say if the governor would also receive additional royalties linked to book sales.

The book contract, signed after his first full year in office, was responsible for nearly doubling Cuomo's income between 2012 and 2013, tax returns show.

How many copies of this book do you think Harper Collins sells?

Do they think there's a readership out there for Andrew Cuomo's memoir?

Or maybe they think fans of Chris Cuomo will buy it?

Andrew Cuomo has the reputation for being one of the biggest asses in politics.

I can't imagine the book sells more than a few thousand copies at best.

So why did Murdoch give Cuomo at least $700,000 in compensation for this memoir?

Notice when the contract with Harper Collins was signed - right after his first year in office.

That was when Cuomo and Harper Collins Rupert Murdoch were still best buds (as demonstrated by how Murdoch flack Fred Dicker treated Cuomo in the NY Post.)

Even then, Murdoch had to know that few copies of this book would be sold.

This was a bribe from Murdoch to Cuomo in the form of a book contract.

I can't wait for the book to come out and see how many copies get sold.

I suspect this Cuomo memoir will be up there as a loss-leader, along with Murdoch's other great loss leader, the NY Post.