Why Moving Up the Publication Date for Fire and Fury Was a Risky Move

When the Trump administration publicly denounced the bombshell excerpts from Michael Wolff's tell-all, Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House, both author and publisher were thrilled. "Where do I send a box of chocolates?" Wolff rhetorically asked NBC's Today show co-host Savannah Guthrie during the first stop on his press tour. There was seemingly no need for Henry Holt & Co., publisher of Fire and Fury, to figure out ways to drive sales and marketing for the book. President Trump was doing the heavy lifting for them. Cable news couldn't stop discussing explosive anecdotes from the book that were included in a New York magazine story published on Jan. 3, 2018. They included harsh quotes from former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon and other stunning details about the early days of the Trump administration. On Thursday, Jan. 4, President Trump's attorney Charles J. Harder sent a cease-and-desist letter to Macmillan Publishers USA, parent company of Henry Holt & Co., demanding that publication of the book stop. Macmillan's initial response was to move the publication date up to Friday, Jan. 5 from the original Tuesday, Jan. 9 date. Making a last-second decision to push a book's publication date up by four days isn't totally unheard of. Sellers often abide by an embargo date set by the publisher. But this instance is unlike anything at least one publishing industry vet has ever seen. "It is one thing to advance the on-sale date, but it's a separate issue when you don't have enough copies printed to even satisfy demand," says Idea Logical Company founder and CEO Mike Shatzkin, who has held various roles over a 50-year career in the publishing industry. "In terms of breaking the original target date, it's mostly a matter of notifying people, certainly starting to ship yourself if you have books, and accepting the fact that your best laid plan about having everything all come together in one week is not going to happen anymore. The second problem, however, is a more acute one, which is that "the demand for this book is just blowing away all expectations," Shatzkin continued. Macmillan CEO John Sargent recently told the Wall Street Journal that the publisher had printed 150,000 copies. Now, they're on their way to 1 million. That presents a problem for booksellers and ultimately consumers. "Basically as the books come off the press, they go on pallets and into boxes, and out to costumers who are immediately putting them on the shelf. It's not clear exactly how long it will take for supply to catch up with demand, and for there to be books on shelves for the next person who wants to go into the store and get it," said Shatzkin. "It certainly will be a few days, maybe even a couple of weeks." Sargent, who has run Macmillan for roughly 20 years, has publicly said that this is the fastest-selling non-fiction book in the publisher's 151-year history. Since last week, Fire and Fury has been the No. 1 bestselling book on Amazon. Even Wolff has been taken aback by the book's popularity, telling Sargent that printing 150,000 copies was probably excessive. Wolff, the brand, is also a significant part of the Fire and Fury story. He is well-known in New York media circles as a flashy, yet controversial reporter and editor. He was Adweek's editorial director for a year, earlier this decade.