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Where Donald Trump Is Losing to Clinton and Carson: The Best-Seller List

By ALEXANDRA ALTERMARCH 9, 2016
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Ben Carson’s autobiography has far outsold books by Hillary Rodham Clinton and Donald J. Trump.

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Publishing a book is a rite of passage for almost everyone who aspires to the White House. So how do the presidential candidates stack up based on their book sales?

On Tuesday, Nielsen released the print sales figures for books by the Republican and Democratic candidates, including Donald J. Trump’s business best seller “Trump: The Art of the Deal” and Hillary Rodham Clinton’s memoir “Hard Choices,” and the results were surprising.

Ben Carson, who ended his campaign last week, may have a viable fallback career in publishing: His books have collectively sold about 1.7 million copies in print, according to Nielsen.
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The Candidates as Authors

Print unit sales for all books written by the leading presidential candidates, plus Ben Carson, who left the race last week but is leading in book sales. Nielsen’s data goes back only to 2001.

CANDIDATE

PRINT BOOKS SOLD SINCE 2001

Ben Carson

1,669,300

Hillary Clinton

517,600

Donald J. Trump

374,500

Ted Cruz

65,100

Bernie Sanders

28,800

John Kasich

21,000

Marco Rubio

17,500
Source: Nielsen

By The New York Times
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Road to 2016: 10 Things I Learned About Donald Trump in ‘The Art of the Deal’SEPT. 22, 2015
Books of The Times: Hillary Clinton’s Book ‘Hard Choices’ Portrays a Tested Policy WonkJUNE 7, 2014
With Ben Carson, the Doctor and the Politician Can Vary SharplyNOV. 22, 2015

Like political forecasting, measuring success in publishing isn’t a precise science. Nielsen’s data is incomplete. The company tracks sales only going back to 2001, so its figures don’t reflect total sales figures for Mr. Trump’s “The Art of the Deal,” which was published in 1987, or Mr. Carson’s best-selling memoir “Gifted Hands,” which came out in 1990. The figures also don’t reflect e-book sales, and they capture only about 85 percent of print sales.

But the numbers do offer a glimpse of how the candidates’ respective messages are resonating — or not — with readers. Senator Marco Rubio’s “American Dreams: Restoring Economic Opportunity for Everyone” has sold just 13,200 print copies since it came out in January 2015.
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Nielsen will be updating sales data on these titles every other week on its new political site, Election Central, which goes live next week.

Here is a sampling of prose from this campaign season’s presidential aspirants:

Ben Carson, “Gifted Hands: The Ben Carson Story”:

“I’m a good neurosurgeon. That’s not a boast but a way of acknowledging the innate ability God has given to me. Beginning with determination and using my gifted hands, I went on for training and sharpening of my skills.”

Hillary Rodham Clinton, “Living History”:

“Take criticism seriously, but not personally. If there is truth or merit in the criticism, try to learn from it. Otherwise, let it roll right off you.”

Donald J. Trump, “Trump: The Art of the Deal”:

“One of the problems when you become successful is that jealousy and envy inevitably follow. There are people — I categorize them as life’s losers — who get their sense of accomplishment and achievement from trying to stop others. As far as I’m concerned, if they had any real ability they wouldn’t be fighting me, they’d be doing something constructive themselves.”

Marco Rubio, “American Dreams: Restoring Economic Opportunity for Everyone”:

“I don’t buy into the dystopian scenarios of self-aware robots enslaving mankind, but you don’t have to be a sci-fi conspiracy theorist to acknowledge that plenty of good, well-paying jobs are being taken over by machines.”