Amidst the Going Rogue Hooplah…

By Peter Nevland - Nov 17 , 2009

Love her or hate her, there’s no denying that Sarah Palin has unleashed a blockbuster with her new book, due out today, Going Rogue. After dominating media coverage and pre-order sales for the last few weeks, Rogue has generated the type of buzz that caused a salivating Harper Collins to print an initial run of 1.5 million copies and fork over $1.25 million to Palin up-front. Look behind all the hooplah and it’s not too hard to discern the ingredients that make for a literary rainmaker:

1. When publishers promote the books they sell, they make more money.

Doing their best imitation of Sylvester McMonkey McBean, Harper Collins has stoked the forges of conservative and liberal vehemence alike to rake in as much money as possible. They booked her a 13-stop combination book tour and political junket in mostly Republican strongholds while at the same time garnering an exclusive view from political polar opposite, Oprah. In the media, where it’s more important to voice an opinion than to discern whether its expression is merited, reporters and talk show hosts alike have raced to usher their views on Palin, and sometimes even her book.

Melanie Kirkpatrick of The Wall Street Journal proudly proclaims, “This is not the prejudiced, dim-witted ideologue of the popular liberal imagination.” Michiko Kakutani, of The New York Times, barely even bothers to disguise her bias, saying that it’s “part cagey spin, part earnest autobiography, part payback hit job. And its most compelling sections deal not with politics but with Ms. Palin’s life in Alaska and her family.” The L.A. Times notes, “Like just about everything she has done publicly since she was thrust into the national spotlight as Republican presidential candidate John McCain’s running mate, Palin’s entry into the literary world has been splashy and contentious.”

Talk about splashy and contentious—if you think those entries in the media world seem barbed, you should read the comments submitted to the bottom of each review. They read like a battle zone of over-caricatured evil warlords and hayseed-spittin’, bumpkin buffoons, which leads to my next point—

2. Make sure the book engages a wide audience with deep-seeded feelings.

“Scares you idiots, doesn’t she? I spent a little less than 3 years in Alaska – The Last Frontier. Had to return to the lower 48 with a great admiration of those who live there. She scares you because she speaks the TRUTH,” submits commenter “Bob Leathers” to About.com‘s Political Humor blog.

In response “Mike” writes, “Sarah Palin represents the worst of America. She is a bigot hiding behind a phony religious facade while she incites hatred and resentment.”

Wow! United we stand! Having a public forum to vent opinions without a real person’s face and emotions directly in front of you sure makes it easy to spew venom. OR books has even released a collection of disparaging Palin essays called, Going Rouge: An American Nightmare as an “opportunity to offer people a choice, a different perspective on her,” co-editor Betsy Reed says. I’m surprised that no video game company has capitalized on the volcano heat raging between conservatives and liberals by releasing games where one group butchers caricatures of the other side in Grand Theft Auto style.

What you won’t hear from the cornucopia of review opinions is that Going Rogue is boring or dully written. No publisher, much less Harper Collins, would chance a dry thud in the reading department for a book that’s risked this amount of money. Although not the main ingredient, my third point is no less important—

3. A blockbuster book has to read well enough to engage buyers with something relatively interesting.

So Palin (with the unmentioned approval of Harper Collins) enlisted the writing efforts of WORLD magazine editor, Lynn Vincent. Despite the almost-perfect alignment with Palin’s political views, Vincent has writing chops as well, having written the bestselling Same Kind of Different as Me along with numerous other non-fiction works ranging from biopics of scandalized Christians and former terrorists to exposés of the Democratic party. Even Donna Scott, of the notably liberal Huffington Post says, “In a time where too few journalists try to tackle subjects that are controversial, Lynn Vincent is a bit of a maverick. Lynn is witty, funny, and like it or not, evangelical.”

I haven’t read the book. I probably won’t, despite all the buzz and publicity it generates. It reveals no indication of my personal political views on Sarah Palin, conservatives, or liberals. Barack Obama’s Dreams From My Fathers didn’t find its way in front of my eyes, either. Political non-fiction just doesn’t interest me as much as novels with deeper implications about life and the culture we inhabit. I’ll take Tolstoy, Bradbury, Coupland, or Tolkien any day. So I’ll make no comment on what I think of Going Rogue.

I hope prospective writers and publishers see that the publishing world is less of a mystery and more of a cooking recipe with specifically required ingredients. You can choose to publish stories that make you happy, shout out ideas that drive your passions, or simply decide to write words that cause people to pay you. The moneymaking decision requires an organization or person with vast resources to promote your work, an audience that cares about buying it, and enough writing quality to avoid the kind of word-of-mouth that kills crappy movies and lame books.

If you find the balance of your passion with enough monetary income that keeps your dreams afloat, you’ve graduated to a special class of charmed people that walk the earth.

And if I had to choose which character came out shining the brightest in the Going Rogue saga, my vote would go to the writer behind the scenes, Lynn Vincent.