Sarah Palin's Sarah PAC Spent $63,000 On Copies Of 'Going Rogue'

Sarah PAC, Sarah Palin's political action committee, raised more than $1.4 million in the second-half of 2009, according to the Washington Post's Chris Cillizza. That figure brings the group's fundraising haul to $2.1 million for 2009. Cillizza reports:

...Sarah PAC and ended the year with $900,000 in the bank. She donated $64,600 to candidates and party committees.

That relatively high burn rate is due to an expansion of the organization's staff, according to those familiar with its operations. (Remember that with Palin out of office -- she resigned the governorship in July 2009 -- her PAC is her only political and policy vehicle.)

Beyond new staff and donations, what else is Sarah PAC spending money on? Books -- her own book -- according to ABC News:

The former Alaska governor and 2008 Republican vice presidential candidate had her political organization spend more than $63,000 on what her reports describe as "books for fundraising donor fulfillment." The payments went to Harper Collins, her publisher, and in some instances to HSP Direct, a Virginia-based direct mail fundraising firm that serves a number of well-known conservative politicians and pundits.

Sarah PAC spent another $8,000 on colorful bookmarks designed by a Nashville-based event branding firm. And her committee paid her publisher $20,000 for what appears to have been the cost of sending her personal photographer and another aide along on her book tour.

Hotline offers a more detailed breakdown of the former governor's expenditures.

How many copies of "Going Rogue" would $63,000 buy? It depends. Without knowing how much sales tax was paid on the books or if the former governor bought them at a bulk rate, Palin's group could have bought anywhere from 2,173 (at suggested full retail price of $28.99) to 4,666 copies (at a steeply discounted Amazon rate of $13.50).

Comments

[JFetch]

01:53 AM on 02/03/2010

Sarah PAC spends thousands of dollars on books, and then Sarah Palin gets royalties from those books. Sarah PAC just funneled thousands of dollars to Sarah Palin.

[deosil]

02:09 PM on 02/03/2010

OH, $ARAH!

[Lisa Davis]

04:41 AM on 02/04/2010

That's not quite how it works. It's estimated that HaperCollins gave Palin an advance of up to $5 million to publish her book. She actually has to sell enough books to "pay back" that $5m before she can receive royalties. And only about 10% of the price of the book goes toward royalty payments, which means she has to sell millions of books in order to begin earning royalties - my guess is that she'll never sell enough.

So that money isn't going to her at all. It's just trying to keep her book on the bestseller list to gain more attention and make more sales. Of course, \the money is going to HarperCollins, which is owned by Rupert Murdoch's NewsCorp, and that can be seen as just as bad.

(I work in publishing.)

[Archivist1000]

11:45 PM on 02/02/2010

The 'buying her own books' with donor money is sadly Palinesque. And just ONE of the funny details revealed in the SarahScamPAC.

But .. here is a serious issue, that people SHOULD be concerned about. The 'use' of Military Bases for political purposes AND taxpayers picking up the tab for enhanced security.

More than $132,000.00 from SarahPAC money was used for the book tour. Is that what her fans think they are donating their hard-earned money for? So that Sarah can promote her book? Private jets ($27,000), expensive hotels ($1700.00 for 2 nights) the shrink-wrapped bus ($13,000) and almost $28,000 for a photographer -- (fans paid for their pictures too??) Why didn't Harper Collins pay for this? Or is there some double dipping going on??


So here are my common sense questions:

If Sarah used the PAC money for expenses on her book tour, then it was a Political Event?

And if it was a Political Event, why was she allowed to 'campaign' on Military Bases??





http://archivist1000.blogspot.com/2010/01/common-sense-question-sarahpac.html

[James Herbst]

07:52 PM on 02/02/2010

Liberals.
Over step the issues of politics to help people into the area of personal attacks.

Stick to the issue leave the comedy and drivel for late night.

[larmar]

01:16 PM on 02/02/2010

Spend that tea-bagger money. Ha Ha tea baggers!!

[lastpost]

11:13 AM on 02/02/2010

“Sarah PAC Spent $63,000 On Copies Of 'Going Rogue'”

She was only trying to avoid making the same mistake as Glenn. That being, having no recollection of what she had previously said. And she thought it would be wise to get a number of copies. Just in case she had said something different, in some of them.

[billobasher]

11:12 AM on 02/02/2010

Right wingers have been inflating the true number of their book sales for uyears. It is comming knowlege to those in the publishing business. More than half the books they write are being covered by BULK purchases.

[retromega]

11:06 AM on 02/02/2010

How many could she buy at the $4.?? rate being offered on Sat TV? They claim she is "taking the Country by storm" but the sell Palin's Book for $4 something plus if you order Now!!!! you get a subscription for some magazine! This is true its on the Direct TV setup!

I guess its appropriate to sell it at that price. The bits I've read sound like Sarah P. had a very hard time in grades 2 thru 6. Imagine a Super Man Comic in a singsong voice and you have a good perception of how her Heroic Triumphs over various evils like equal rights, peace instead of war, teachers concerned about her children's progress, various slights and demonic oppositions to her godly positions, and a general feeling of victimization because her fellow citizens want her to help pay for the services she uses. Pretty junior High!

[hatrickpenry]

10:36 AM on 02/02/2010

2,000 books out of 2 mil. sold? Where's the story here? Sour grapes that she absolutely smashed the figures on "Dreams of my father?"

[CJWebber]

10:42 AM on 02/02/2010

2000 books? You really think she paid $31.50 each??

[hatrickpenry]

11:23 AM on 02/02/2010

Make it 2 drops in the bucket & call it 4,000 if it makes you feel better.

[cheesecat]

10:47 AM on 02/02/2010

More assertions with no links.

[hatrickpenry]

11:22 AM on 02/02/2010

700,000 copies sold of 'Dreams' (book by William Ayers) Widely reported in the news over two months ago. Palin's original 1.5mil copy run was increased to 2.5 within the first week after initial release, due to Internet orders, with more runs scheduled after that.
Life comes at you fast.

[ywcachieve]

09:51 AM on 02/02/2010

She is a big scam artist. And her children are seeing all of this.

They are learning how to scam, con, and lie from their mother dearest.

Also, don't think that they don't know their mother was not pregnant, when she was lying telling the Alaskan people she was pregnant, then lying to the nation saying she gave birth to the youngest child.

I think is is hilarious how her sheeple are filling her coffers.

[ladyvader]

08:04 PM on 02/02/2010

Sounds like she grew up that way, just like she is raising her own kids.

[ThinkCreeps]

09:38 AM on 02/02/2010

$60,000 spent - what's she going to do with 184,000 bound wads of toilet tissue?

[Jocko99]

09:30 AM on 02/02/2010

Concur, sacto92. I don't recall hpers getting their panties in a wad when Hillary did the same thing.

[Lilly-G]

09:24 AM on 02/02/2010

Palin is a scam artist and not a very good one at that. I don't see how she can get away with much considering her every move is reported. Someday, she will be revealed for the low-life she really is.

[co-sine]

09:16 AM on 02/02/2010

"Just the omission of Sarah Palin's books alone would make a fairly good library out of a library that hadn't a book in it." Mark Twain as timely today as ever. You are fanned posthumously.

[sacto92]

09:00 AM on 02/02/2010

You all seem to forget that Hillary Clinton also bought thousands of her books in order to get it higher on the best seller list. It's stupid, but they all do it.

[AmyRN]

09:52 AM on 02/02/2010

But did she do it with funds that were donated to a PAC?

[ywcachieve]

10:00 AM on 02/02/2010

sacto92...Show us proof of this, a link or something.

Anybody can say anything, but it means nothing without proof.

[MariJman]

08:57 AM on 02/02/2010

she's giving them to the mooses's