When New York Times chief Mark Thompson published his latest book, ‘Enough Said: What’s Gone Wrong With the Language of Politics?’ this month, there must have been a part of him that worried about its negative title.
If he did have concerns, he wasn’t alone.
New figures obtained by Heat Street show that sales of this collection of his thoughts on the history of the public discourse have got off to a truly dreadful start.
In the UK, the book went on sale on September 1. Between then and September 10 it sold 482 copies.
In the US, it went on sale on September 6. Over the next five days it sold a mere 59 copies.
By September 10 the book had also sold 10 copies in Ireland and just one copy in Australia, making a known international total of 552 books.
The disappointing figure is despite Thompson being given every chance to plug the book. It has been reviewed widely, including by his own newspaper.
His publicity drive has further included an interview with the Sunday Times Magazine in London and an appearance at the Edinburgh book festival.
On September 11 Thompson also used an interview on Andrew Marr’s BBC1 current affairs show to boost the book, causing some to ask whether anyone else but a former BBC director-general who’d written such a lofty tome would have been given such an opportunity.
He had another go on September 14 edition of BBC Radio 4’s The Media Show.
It’s clear that Thompson, who last year picked up an $8.7 million salary package, is desperate to sell some books.
So what’s the problem?
It could be that the public at large is not happy at the very unsatisfactory confusion that remains over Thompson’s role in the Jimmy Savile scandal. This scandal continues to haunt the New York Times chief.
Others may have been put off by the ongoing legal tussle in which Thompson is involved with two New York Times employees.
There is a third possibility which could explain the deeply disappointing sales in the US.
For a book about words and language written by a man who took a First in English from Merton College Oxford, it is surely unacceptable that he does not know how to spell the name of the former prime minister of Italy, Silvio Berlusconi, as this US edition dust jacket shows:
Is it really fair to expect people to stump up $27.99 under these circumstances?
Heat Street sent Thompson an email asking him to comment but he has so far failed to do so.
Enough Said.