Newsom Sold 2/3rds of His ‘Bestselling’ Book to Himself

Every presidential candidate is expected to pay a ghostwriter to write a memoir about the sheer wonderfulness of being him and the lessons he learned along the way.

Gov. Gavin Newsom’s was titled, “Young Man in a Hurry: A Memoir of Discovery.” Maybe it should have been titled “Middle Aged Man in a Hurry to Put Donor Money in His Pockets” instead.

Who was really going to plonk down thirty bucks (currently ten and change at Walmart) to read how Newsom at once insisted he was a poor kid with dyslexia and a favorite stepscion of the Getty clan who took him to meet the King of Spain? Unsurprising, Gavin Newsom proved to be his biggest fan.

On Wednesday, new federal records revealed that Mr. Newsom’s political action committee paid $1,561,875 to buy and distribute copies of his book through the donation program.

“Make a contribution of ANY AMOUNT today and I will send you a copy,” he wrote.

It turned out about 67,000 supporters did just that. The books those donors received account for roughly two-thirds of the print copies of the memoir that have been sold.

His campaign argues that there were no royalties on those copies, but that’s obvious. Otherwise he would be directly moving money from his PAC into his pockets which would be arguably illegal. (With pols and campaign finance, everything is ‘arguable’.)

Newsom’s advance is calculated against the profits that the publisher makes from the book. And the willingness of the publisher to put it out and promote the book is also factored in.

Gavin Newsom reportedly received up to $100K as a book advance. He may not make royalties from most of the copies sold, but the PAC copies help make the book a bestseller, which leads to more regular sales.

So he’s profiting from the PAC spending anyway.