Book-selling giant Amazon uses its own data to track customers' political-book preferences via its “Election Heat Map 2012,” but whether the map sheds much light on the presidential vote's outcome is debatable.
Updated daily at amazon.com/gp/election-heatmap , the interactive graphic colors states Republican red or Democrat blue based on their residents' purchases of Amazon's top 100 “red” and “blue” print, electronic and audio books. The web page also provides national percentages — as of the middle of last week, 43 percent blue, 57 percent red, with all but a handful of states in red.
Books aimed at conservative readers tend to be more numerous and to outsell books aimed at liberal readers. The Washington Times' Valerie Richardson recently outlined the reasons why.
Publishers make more money targeting conservative readers, who often feel mainstream media give their views short shrift. There are more big-name conservative commentators than liberal ones. And with the first-term record of an incumbent seeking re-election ripe for criticism, anti-incumbent books consistently outnumber pro-incumbent books — especially when the incumbent is as controversial as Barack Obama.
Amazon makes no claim that its “Heat Map” is a crystal ball, calling it “one way to follow the changing political conversation across the country during this election season.” And Chris Schleup, Amazon's senior books editor and member of Amazon's “Heat Map” team, told Businessweek that it's “not a scientific survey” and presenting it as predicting the election's outcome “would be very misleading.”
Still, the “Heat Map” page offers tidbits that fascinate — for example, Obama's “The Audacity of Hope” is outselling Mitt Romney's “No Apology,” but Paul Ryan, Eric Cantor and Kevin McCarthy's “Young Guns” is outselling Joe Biden's “Promises to Keep.” And once you've checked out the map, it's tough to resist going back to see if it's changed.
The map's existence reflects how a presidential election heightens interest in political books. Here are two that Amazon's “Heat Map” will have to take into account:
• “‘Trickle Down' Theory and ‘Tax Cuts for the Rich'” by Thomas Sowell (Hoover Institution Press). Available Oct. 1, this new, brief essay (20 pages, counting covers) by a frequent Trib columnist fits a niche publishing trend of the past few years — the 21st-century revival of pamphleteering. It “addresses the gross misconceptions that have undermined rational debates about tax policies for decades,” the publisher says.
• “The Liberal War on Transparency: Confessions of a Freedom of Information ‘Criminal'” by Christopher C. Horner (Threshold Editions). Due out Oct. 2, this book rebuts President Obama's rhetoric about running history's most transparent administration. Its best-selling author, an attorney and Competitive Enterprise Institute senior fellow, contends that Obama Democrats have gone to great lengths to conceal their dealings while hypocritically demanding release of Mitt Romney's tax returns.
Alan Wallace is a Trib Total Media editorial page writer (412-320-7983 or awallace@tribweb.com).
