Trump Books Aren’t Selling Anymore
A decade into the Trump era, readers who were once hungry to learn about the man seem to have had their fill.
Not too long ago, books about Donald Trump were the safest bet in publishing. Fire and Fury, Michael Wolff’s tell-all about Trump’s chaotic first year in office, was a monster best seller in 2018, as were his subsequent Trump books in 2019 and 2021. Each volume of Bob Woodward’s three-part chronicle of Trump’s first term (Fear, Rage, and Peril) all reached the top of the New York Times nonfiction list. Insider accounts (such as Unhinged, by Omarosa Manigault Newman, briefly a Trump-administration official), polemics (Triggered, by Donald Trump Jr.), and other journalistic narratives captivated readers, too. All told, during his first term, at least 20 Trump-related books hit the top spot on the Times list.
Now the best-seller lists tell a different story: The Trump-book bubble has burst. This is no doubt partly the result of reader fatigue—there are only so many Trump books any one politics junkie can be expected to buy. But the president himself might be personally undermining the value proposition of books about his favorite subject. During his first term, Trump books promised juicy revelations about behind-the-scenes conflict, offensive comments made in private, and crazy plans narrowly averted. This time around, Trump’s team seems united, his offensive outbursts are made in public, and the crazy plans aren’t averted. There may just be less for the chroniclers to reveal.
Whatever the explanation, the numbers don’t lie. Several solidly reported and well-reviewed volumes on Trump’s interregnum and reelection, such as Meridith McGraw’s Trump in Exile and Alex Isenstadt’s Revenge: The Inside Story of Trump’s Return to Power, didn’t even dent the hardcover-nonfiction list. Another, 2024: How Trump Retook the White House and the Democrats Lost America, by three star politics reporters, briefly flashed onto the Times list before quickly vanishing. Even Wolff is no longer a sure thing. After three previous appearances atop the Times list, his account of the 2024 election, All or Nothing: How Trump Recaptured America, reached only No. 10 upon its debut. It fell off the list after a week and didn’t return.