We all seem to have been muttering about the open secret of political memoirs, which is widely known, but rarely discussed: they are not bought, read, or even purchased by many people, yet they still make the bestseller lists.
Kamala Harris, the alleged Vice President of the United States, is no exception. Harris’s 2019 autobiography, “The Truths We Hold”, earned only $234.13 last year, according to her financial disclosures from 2023.
The financial disclosure did not make it clear whether these royalties included sales from the “young reader” edition which could count as child abuse.
Harris earned an even more lucrative $8,254 for her children’s 2019 book “Superheroes Are Everywhere.” I’m curious who purchased enough copies of Harris’s “Superheroes Are Everywhere,” to earn her a royalty check in the four-figure range. If they were anything other than left-dominated school districts I would need a fainting sofa and a stiff beverage. Or, at least the drink.
What I would like to know, is whether Harris’ actual authors earned anything other than a small one-time payment. Jordan Schachtel wrote that the famous person who has their name and picture on the cover can “acquire tons and tons of money and a reputational lift, as well as sometimes the prestige of being listed on the New York Times Best-Selling Author List.” “All this for maybe a few phone calls with the author who receives an amount of 10-20 grand for six months’ hard work.”
Even with Harris’s fame, proximity to power, and the amount of royalties he received over a medium term, it was not a lot.
In the Veep’s annual disclosure, ESPN also revealed a small gift. The former sports network gave Harris tickets worth $1,890 to the December 2023 Cricket Celebration Bowl in Atlanta. Harris reciprocated by appearing in the broadcast booth and talking about her time as a Howard University student.
As we are talking about disclosures I would be remiss to not mention a few items from the First Couple’s annual report.
Joe Biden’s books did not show any royalties last year. The children’s book by Doctor Jill Biden about her husband was published in 2020. The illustrated “Joey”: The Story of Joe Biden, was published in 2020. The cover boasts “By New York Times bestselling author Jill Biden”, in the same size letters as “The Story of Joe Biden.”
The report doesn’t give exact figures, but it puts Joey’s royalties for 2023 somewhere between $2,501 and $5,000. I would bet that the majority — if they are not all — of these purchases were made by public school libraries.
Biden’s financial disclosures were interesting because of how little was reported for a man with such enviable wealth (if not a bit mysterious).
