Seven years ago, on the eve of being elected to a second term as governor of New York, Andrew Cuomo completed a rite of passage familiar to all presidential aspirants: He published a memoir, All Things Possible. It is overlong at more than 550 pages, cliche-ridden, and hopelessly dull, which is to say a standard-issue political tome. Cuomo was paid a more than $700,000 advance by HarperCollins; the book had an announced initial print run of 200,000. But five months after it was published, it had sold just over 3,000 copies in hardcover and 13 audiobooks. Even by the dismal standards of the subgenre of books by politicians, this was a flop—based on a conservative estimate of the governor’s advance, Cuomo earned about $200 for every hardcover sold.
For most authors, a sales track record like this would be the kiss of death. Disastrous debuts are rarely rewarded with lucrative follow-up book deals. But despite the abysmal failure of All Things Possible, Cuomo published a follow-up, American Crisis: Leadership Lessons from the Pandemic last fall. According to The New York Times, the bidding process for that book “ended with a high offer of more than $4 million,” a figure in line with earlier reporting suggesting that Cuomo had been paid an advance in the low-to-mid seven figures.
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