to live together as one tribe. .. >> and coming out of the chappaquiddick river.

so years later no new york publisher would publish this and regnery publish at 27 weeks on the new york times bestseller list. flags of our fathers not flags of our brothers. twenty-seven publishers turned it down. and then we take it went 27 weeks on the bestseller list. i don't know if you are reading this still but every day somehow on the facebook page so you would know this but you could not drive a mile

so i'm sure with that little facebook page. and if we do get control of the internet then regnery could be the only way to communicate. [laughter] so stay on their mailing list. and leave regnery to those dangerous men. [applause]

>> what type of books does regnery publish? >> best-selling books of course. but for the recently published books for conservative readers on current events and politics and culture now political books like history and fiction and we have a new line called regnery states. >>host: so break that down it is a conservative case? >> always been the case starting the company seven years ago that was dedicated to publishing for conservative readers. and at the time it is the only book publisher for conservative authors and

ideas. and that is from the conservative movement. we publish william f buckley and russell kirk with the conservative mind, witness and all of those are still in print today. >>host: does that say something about the publishing industry? >> definitely. and henry regnery recognize that in the market space that is a published book but that is also because they are part of the mission. >>host: who are some of the authors published today?

>> the leading rights in the conservative movement, dinesh desousa, and a whole host of others. >> if you put and coulter out to does it sell automatically because of her name? >> it certainly helps. but i can't tell you any book is a guarantee of success anymore. as the book business has changed over the past 12 years a lot more of the business has gone online. so you lose that opportunity to visualize and publish those books visually and also lose the sense of discovery people have had for generations or

finding the book they didn't know existed or an author they did not know about before. so frankly it is more pressure on publishers to help people know that a book exist if there isn't a celebrity author. >> how do you market a book? regnery has become the leader and by that i mean we think organically from the very beginning how the book will become part of the news cycle with the theme of the book and the topics and the issues to be connected with what is happening with the crystal ball and we try to anticipate

what the big concerns will be within the marketplace driving the news and how your books and authors we use earned media whether tv or talk radio with those media outlets to drive the conversation to make our books and our authors part of the conversation. >> doesn't matter which party is in power for sales? >> a great question. we said what is bad for america and is good for regnery. when liberals are in power not for the country it is great for selling conservative books and when the opposition party is in power conservatives

become very engaged and concerned with a landscape for the book. but we have found there is so much debate and disagreement and concern across the political landscape it is selling very well even with a republican in the white house. because people are genuinely concerned within the country about looking for a explanation what is going on and how the country can return

to the bedrock foundation principles to keep the country on the right track. >> we spoke with harry who is responsible for acquiring books. >> how do you acquire an author? >> traditionally it was waiting for agent. but a lot of what we do here is to project the news. so this author on this topic we try to make those marriages happen we have this idea let's do this together. that has been the go to strategy.

and then to actively pursue the authors. >> ann coulter on immigration? >> she actually came to us with that. [laughter] of course the author will make it their own so i will call them up to say what you think about this? what they will say what about this plus this? so it eventually works out but of course they can make the case the best way that they can. >> so if you have a conversation with mr. klein how does that go? >> so can you find this out? and for that that i think will

be newsworthy. and to say i am on the trail. it is a take act in and forth. so with that initial conversation until it is on the bookshelf? >> but that is what sets us apart because many of the books that we do our current event driven with a very short incubation. the reporting is done especially with a reporter's book. you cannot sit on the story for too long we could sign-up a book because the books on the shelves you are shipping them on trucks it could be four weeks. so you 40 lost two months.

but with the d days in the weeks. and on the matter of months have you started to acquire books fall 2018? >> yes. drop ins we do a lot of those because of current events that you don't know about. but you have to have a hot topic or a hot author. and they much prefer the books

with a good handle of what is coming. we trust the issue a lot. >> harry crocker one of the national conversations right now is about sexual assault. is that something you keep your eye on? >> that is interesting because there are topics that are important but that isn't the same topic that will sell books. like this with harvey weinstein that could sell a lot of books. our books tend to be more political and based near washington so that wouldn't be

a big topic. >> capitol hill, tax reform. >> actually nobody cares about tax reform. if there is a book about why we should have a flat tax but our bread and butter page 2495 there isn't a big market for that. so if we had a restaurant you tell me about a book that you published something that you are bursting to tell me tell everybody else. the hot button political issue. but if it is presented well

enough that not many people have conversations about tax policy. >> george has written about virtual coinage and you could learn a lot. >> that is an interesting case because he comes from that model so he is a paradigm so so they help you understand the world. that is a great example including mark stein. but his books are very serious at the same time it is one thing to have a book with a lot of things those are great

it is really great to publish a book that alters your perception of what actually happened. so to see it more precisely to say now i get it. now i understand. why people are behaving this way. >>host: have you published a biography or an exclamation of donald trump? >> we published a number of books that relate in many different ways including publishing a book by him himself in 2011 that was fun and important that allowed him to talk about his vision for

america what was going wrong in the country before he talked about running in the last cycle so we published books by donald trump and about donald trump during the 2016 election the last book called the conservative case for trump to play a role to get elected those that may have been wondering. to say what he is and the reaso reason. >> and throw out 2017 publishing books that talk about different aspects of the

trump administration not only what he stands for but all of those against him including one of the most recent with the book by ed klein. >> what do you consider to be a bestseller? >> that hits publishers weekly bestseller list that is a national bestseller list based on data and it captures better selling the most copies any given week. how many books i have to sell? it is a moving target and it is all relative. any given week if you can get

onto that list maybe three or 4000 in a busy season leading up to the holidays it could take 15000. it depends on the competition in a given week not depends on how we plan out to release the book. maybe it is better in april when there are fewer books trying to get the top spots. >>host: looking at your book shelf some say new york times some say bestseller why the difference? >> we made up for -- pretty big decision this year to stop using the new york times bestseller moniker as a

promotion vehicle and away to track bestseller success. because we saw that new york times bestseller list frequently did not reflect what really was selling the best in the country. whether it is a liberal bias or an outdated team of tracking sales, we felt repeatedly the books that were selling the most copies were not ending up on the top of the new york times list and frankly especially true if they were conservative. whether it was regnery or published by somebody else conservative books without cell liberal books from

authors from the last and we look at the bookscan data but somehow they were lower on the new york times so we decided that was not reflective of what was going on so we made a big announcement we would use publishers weekly going forward. >>host: did you bring this to the attention of the new york times? >> on a number of occasions even in previous years. their response has always been we have a proprietary formula and system into secret how they do it and that is a hard thing to argue with.

not a scientific way but we just felt that it was not reflective anymore. >>host: was a good promotional tool to put that on a book? >> yes. frankly it was. because the average reader who does not follow the controversy does not know that the new york times best seller list is not in sync with the actual best-selling books in the country. people inside the industry have complained for a long time. and feel they were treated unfairly but the average reader with the new york times bestseller which meant national so that is the reason

we use that for so many years. certainly many of our books have gotten on that list and have been number one. so it was with a certain degree of trepidation to say no. we just didn't feel in good conscience we could use that anymore wasn't reflective what was going on. >> 2011 whose idea? >> a combination of watching donald trump start to speak and to speak more politically we have the idea and he had the adf the same time we heard he was thinking about a book

so we approached him. we went up to his office in new york city and made our case he agreed and is entrepreneurial. we struck a deal and started right away but i really enjoyed working with him and he was one of the hardest working authors i have ever worked with. he did not turn down one thing we asked him to do to promote the book. and the funny thing fast forward four years he said we should release that in paperback so i took it off the bookshelf and look at it to

make sure there wasn't anything in there to be misaligned with what he was campaigning on. but there is nothing in the book that was inconsistent which i was impressed with. i went to his office and said we want to do this in paperback and within three days we had a response back do it this is what we want to update and let's go and we did. >>host: talk dealmaking? remake it was fun. actually i thought we struck a really good deal. [laughter] that all were going to hear? >> what is the difference between a hardback and paperback? >> such an interesting change in dynamics as well.

as is books are more popular the role of the paperback has changed. and now they don't have to wait anymore because now they can download it the e-book. when we decide to release a book we don't always do it as a hardcover but but the seriousness of the subject matter but also a part of the decision with the readership

is more

outside of current events political category.

we growing our faith line and fiction line. but the core political conservative is around 25 title titles. >> you have 50 books in the plans when you start working on those books? >> we started on some of those earlier this year and rushing books to press because of our focus on current events. we are negotiating right now that we may not sign until the

end of the year we are able to get them very quickly to the marketplace sometimes with the new issue that we want to be a part of. and to make very successful. >> the national conversation on sexual-harassment if you decided to put a book out on the topic how quickly and what is the process? >> it depends on how quickly they can write that. we love to collaborate with our authors obviously without breaking issue we can get a

book turned around signed delivered and within 30 days and in the bookstores two months later. >> what happens in those two months? >> we need to edit, lay out, design, ship, market or get them on the shelf. that is possible if you have a good track record to do that well and have a good relationship with your printer and retail partners which we do and have friends with a quick moving books. >> where are they printed?

>> it is in chicago. a wonderful partner working with them through many years very good to get them turned around weekly and to be centrally located with those fast-moving books to ship them directly from the printer to the bookstore. >> is there a big warehouse somewhere with thousands and thousands of regnery books? >> hundreds of thousands. yes. there is a warehouse in jackson tennessee.

we partner with a distributor. to handle all the warehousing shipping and fulfillment of the books throughout the country barnes & noble and amazon with sam's club in those places they like to buy books. >> because of those locations has anybody said no? >> all of the day national retailers. they are bare mom -- very savvy there are people from

both sides of the aisle to make sure they are serving those people. it is more true with those independent stores were they are curated with the local market with a specific base there are those that don't serve the conservative marketplace and don't want conservative books in their stores. >> to look at the designs on the covers, what goes into that? some have the authors with big letters or the authors picture. >> we have a lot of fun to design the jackets. it is a very important part to help an author come up with

the title and the right jacket. and that could help enormously and then to help brainstorm to make sure that the titles are not only unique and distinctive but also that can be a phrase or a word that is part of the conversation for instance and klein came up with the title at war we knew that also really described what her audience suspect is

happening with the belief of an all-out war against the administration with the desire to take him down both politically and personally not just a typical partisan battle but totally unprecedented on a larger scale best described as all out war. with the media campaign with the author the way the title of the book could become a part of that media discussion that could make a powerful title to say that in my book xyz but to talk about that and

have that with the market. but as for jackets sometimes we do a facebook we have a celebrity author we want their face on the cover that works with an author that is very beloved are well-known with the audience. that is the job of the jacket to give a perspective to reach out and be drawn to the book and because of that of somebody that they know and in other cases they are drawn to what we try to convey as the

emotional message of the book we want our book jacket so in the title and in the design and the image and the font and the layout without emotional message of the book whether fear or anger or hope or reassurance or outrage. >> to create conceive and design the covers. and then starting off with the political and current events with a face imprint but i'm not quite sure.

so basically all the high profile covers to have a great team of designers who help me out. and also with much of the interior. >> so why would sebastian get a cover like that and somebody else gets a cover like this? but george one is as visual and as famous speech to the cia putting him on the cover

and basically explaining why we fight this is just one of the many solutions with another crossbones and this is the block chain economy. another one about bitcoin now maybe google upside down to create 217 it was just to version. >> it has to be flushed out that they will be published. >> and one is a children's book about the bunny rabbit.

>> the vice presidents bunny rabbit. correct. >>host: who has input into a high profile book like that? >> it is all margie ross, the publisher. yes. this is her baby it was quite a surprise when she informed us she landed karen pants. mom --dash pants we went to the vice president's house and met with him and did a book signing. >> is chad one of the illustrators? >> it kind of helps because he did the illustrations. the original it is saturated when this was a totally separate illustration and then

to take us scan and then to screen that back. we really like that. very good illustrator. >>host: when you put newt gingrich or ann coulter on the front what you saying? >> that they are well-known. we have a lot of facebook's. and even considering this to be a facebook. so it isn't really facebook but the lost shepherd so we

often do facebook's with high profile authors. >> that is a beautiful illustration. >> it isn't unique to the. one of the things that is about my process to turn the internet upside down looking for images and i will go back and google civil war font. and this goes around the back cover from the civil war. resolving millions and millions of photographs this

one just really satisfies with the mistakes falling down. that is a beautiful cover. >> but her name is smaller than the title? >> to have a very, very strong filing one -- following of fiction readers. they read it because of the author but nancy houston is not so well known the subject matter for the christian audience is more important. that is pretty self-explanatory there. and everybody knows david

lindbaugh. we never see him first. >> does david lindbaugh have a say how it looks? we make he says he loves everything we do and i am not kidding. >> what about ann coulter? >> the very first book that i did for her. i have only been here three years. i will admit i did not even know who ann coulter was three years ago my very first book was her book. looking back with my research why do all of her books look like and the city. yes she is attractive and thin with nice body but i want it to be about her brain.

so it broke away from her mold which was just her face. and it follows you everywhere are her eyes. she said it was her best book ever. the best cover so i was happy with that. >> so could we pick at your covers in a bookstore? >> no. because every single cover is unique to the tone of the author that is contextual. and to look at the bookshelf. to say they're all beautifully clean and beautiful typography. that is the hallmark of a good cover. it is appropriate for the subject matter.

>>host: does it help to have an author go on to her -- two or? >> for many years authors regularly went on the whistle stop tour to promote their books. we were the first big publisher to pull the plug to say it is not worthwhile with no leverage. that we have an author to reach 100 or 10000 times as many people sitting in their pajamas doing talk radio then to go on tour so we decided we would focus on television radio and print now it is

digital print and the in person events were only those we could leverage by having media there and cover it. if we know that is added to the equation then it is worth it. but in those cases, just an in person book signing enables icd tour was not worth the time and expense and effort. we definitely have redeployed those resources into social media. that has become a very, very important part of our marketing campaign for our books. for many years they talked about social media and whatever they were asked does it sell books?

they say we have no idea or how do you know or attractive results? we have no idea. but really only the past 18 months we have been able to justify leaning into social media in the big way. and that is a part of the marketing campaign so now it is the way it is a new word-of-mouth mechanism.

because now people are comfortable sharing their mom -- recommendations through social media whether facebook we use all of those mother instagram they are powerful vehicles with driving the bus through social media. >>host: every book has its own marketing and publicity strategy? >> each book has a publicist we pull it apart look at the

editorial what is it that will sell that will make people click with the strategy that is relevant to the topic of the book we talk that out usually half of it works out for lucky. but to be collaborative as a team. >> it is important to click on the link? yes. what we do in the digital marketing side they are immune to advertising so our job is

to put out content driving traffic to the website but without looking like spam. so to do that we have to say that is what the target market cares about. to say what they are already concerned about and show them that this book into the framework. >>host: give us an example of a recent marketing campaigns. >> world war ii book which is very exciting for us because the subject of the book is 93 years old and a fantastic person with the american

library association conference we had a flight out to florida he had a four-minute very quick video template that on facebook push out to a couple of different audiences. and then some world war ii audiences. and then also driving a lot of traffic. >> how much of that was viral? >> i don't know. we put thousand dollars behind boosting it. we try to spend money very carefully.

we are smart how we spend it. so because of the shares ended up reaching a huge audience. >>host: what was your goal to promote the book? >> my team and i primarily on the media from the news driven side what we captured was a special treat to have a first hand account from a world war ii veteran and that is a huge part of the story. so those that we believed would grab onto the story and we got some great profile pieces so that is a great prelaunch so they married together so well it was an ideal situation that felt like

everywhere somewhere turned it was an incredible story. >>host: how closely do you work together? >> to have the surroundsound where people hear about the book on the radio then see it on facebook and as a great media hit to package that to your audience. >> so a book like that versus pr for newt gingrich? just tougher? >> it depends on which aspect you are talking about depending on newt gingrich he

is already on tv but the challenge is not just commentary in the news so working on how you pivot that conversation naturally but it actually sounds relevant to what is happening in the news. >> when you start thinking about a campaign for a book? >> fiction, a longer lead time since we signed a book we are thinking of how we position so the marketing job is to help the sales team and then they turn in the manuscript so

maybe six months out but then those that have written up with the deadlines with a short timeline that is what regnery does very well that we can put together a marketing plan and have a great launch within a couple of months. for us we are working on that proposal and the promotion. is this a book we can sell that the market will like to put that on social media? so that starts from the very beginning. >> you brought this up.

[inaudible] >> it is challenging to create a book so when you sign something that is a major investment because who knows if it is important and on the flipside you could have a book multiple times that is incredibly relevant something changes the week before that nobody expected and a way to navigate around that. >> what are they willing to hear? as far as the message with the mainstream media is interested that is not what the market

watches exposure doesn't always equal sales. that is where the buyers get the information. >> is regnery profitable? >> yes it is. that is tough for companies to be. most publishing businesses are waiting on those that were published previously to provide revenue and profits. it is a high wire act for a company like regnery to grow and be successful and profitable but i think we have been able to be successful and profitable because we are very, very focused on serving the market and understanding our audience and readers not

to do every book under the sun. we are in a book publishing business that is fascinating what kind of books do you do? it was astonishing to me how people would say a little bit of everything. . . . . in the given year.

what other pockets might they have money to say i like history, i like biography, i have children and grandchildren i like to share books with. i believe in founding principles and i would like to buy books on that as well. we report our results of recorder and that's been an interesting change for us not only to be part of a publicly traded company but also to think of our business as a quarterly business which is not built to be a quarterly business, but we publish our business if we are a

book publishing business. >> host: how much of your days spendayspent on the business ens opposed to the editorialist. >> guest: much is spent on the business side. but also thinking about the scales and marketing and promotion of our books. spend thinking about acquiring new authors which of course is essential to the business success and livelihood of our books and so i spent a lot of time thinking about the growth

and future of regnery and whether that means signing up new projects for us to do. that's my priority. >> host: you mentioned the video of the last fighter pilot did that translate into sales? >> guest: it's been one of our most successful books since we launched the lines of years ago. >> host: basically we did it as a reaction to the need for the backlist. we've done a couple of history books and they were successful

and seem to mesh with what we do so now we do history books and it's not history for conservatives, it's pretty much straight history we have authors from different points of view but it's definitely from a pro- america perspective we wouldn't do anything but anti-american. we do a lot of military history, biography and just general history and some fun books. one of our best selling is caught drinking with the scenes and that's writte it's written y professor at waco and he's straight out of central casting format then so he paired the two and wrote this book the center's guide to the holy happy hour and a si 300 or so holy days, givesa

little history of them and has a cocktail recipe. >> a lot of them are focused on world war i or world war ii, correct? >> guest: they are the most popular topics. this year we are doing kind of a shift. one of the more successful is fighter pilot that is written by jerry young who was the last fighter pilot in the last mission out of japan and he goes everywhere and gives talks. >> host: who is sergeant reckless? >> guest: she was in the korean war and was one of the most well known animal heroes of the last century and life

magazine gave her one of the heroes but like the war she was kind of forgotten. she had read about this in a book somewhere and did some research and couldn't find a memorial or anything so she raised over $100,000 build a memorial and then wrote the book which was a category best-seller for "the new york times" and she's put up another and california. it's an incredible story. she first raises a racehorse they bought her to be a mascot t but ended up using her and

warfare and she delivered ammunition up the hill and took some wounded down the hill kind of a medal of honor. >> host: you say that you're not a point of view when it comes to history but was there a frustration with how the history was being written ask >> guest: we were always looking for a different story but in terms of the political perspective, we just wanted an open pro- american story to be told. who is a an altar or hidden autm that you found and who is one of the listhe midst that uvb wanteo get? >> guest: one of the authors that we published that i think is one of the best thinkers and

writers on the conservative scene when we published his first book i don't think he was that well known, mark stein. he's one of my favorites to work with because he is incredibly insightful and hilariously funny and i often say it's a good thing is funny because a lot of things he writes about are pretty scary when he talks about the future direction of the country and the world but when we published our first book within which probably seven or eight years ago now he wasn't a household name, he was a gem for the people that read him and knew him but he wasn't a regular on fox or guest hosting for rush limbaugh and online as he is today. that was a fun discovery for us and a fun opportunity to bring g

someone even more broadly available to the readers. somebody that got away, there are several big conservative stars that have published books and we haven't been able to publish all of them. probably one that i would love to publish that we did and was clarence thomas. we talked with him about his book. in the end he published with someone else. >> host: there has been a slew of big houses with conservative titles. >> no doubt. it's fascinating and interesting timing. within a month of becoming the president and publisher of regnery because everybody had

discovered conservative books, random house started, penguin started sentinel. they didn't exist in the year 2000 and then five years later they were all actively competing for conservative authors. i think it has been healthy and good for us to have to compete with other houses to know that we need to be on our game and approve that there is a great competitive reason for an author to come with regnery. we've had others that have published with us and left to go to a big new york house and came back. we've heard from a number of

authors that it was found to be published with the new york house but they confirmed what he knewiththe new widgets that regs the home for conservative authors and that if you want a publisher who understands the conservative marketplace better than anyone else and has an affinity for conservative authors and can partner with conservative authors because we do understand how the marketplace thinks because we are part of that marketplace then there's nobody better than regnery publishing to do that.

>> this talk is not devoted to craft i should've stayed some

will recognize even the most practiced biographers are bound to have an off start. it is intimidating to re-create another person's life in your own words invented biographer based heavily on research and over the biography into becoming a bloodless document often it takes a biographer i found found wonderful start at least to finance the confidence needed to sever the umbilical cord and produce the effect. if the pernicious influence of race and society and how so much bigotry is retracted through in

american history for if you care to examine what's behind that officeholders saturate the media today i am convinced for a smoke and economics, class, culture, gender or geography all comes together to define who we are as evidenced by this most recent presidential election. as a child growing up to just snip the edges of the affluence i was hardly aware of the forces that dehumanize one another and perpetuate the hierarchy is ruled as americans health. when my father's acquiescence i was taught that religious and ethnic barriers remain insurmountable.

we were subconsciously inculcated in my family at least my dad and even jailing but not for a matter of minutes. his experiences later drove me to the writers like gordon reed willing to take on 200 years of accepted wisdom in writing about the hemmings is that refutes that thomas jefferson had a decade relationship with the slave by marriage sally hemmings and to revise relationships over this rape as it was more cal mon the case helps us understand the racial divide that i need to install devices today. and editing such works i became aware of the challenges faced

and the need to convince whole chapters and stories have the tiniest of clues as the discovery thomas jefferson paid for three smallpox inoculation. what it's like to be in a foreign country or an imminent asserting a man of this honor couldn't possibly have entered into a relationship with a slave girl but how could they have ignored among this mountain of clues that telltale fact that they named their six children after his business associates, something slaves on their own to say the least. while i'm not the editor of the two commanding biographies who

was regarded by hundreds of thousands of americans black-and-white as the paramount custodian of the intellect so many impoverished and intimidated into desperately striving african-americans have either never developed or founded in. in. if you can do the volumes demonstrate the most important events of the post-civil war 19th century and 20th century political history. then we are told in the exciting book divides that b that bind ty concept of race is a false construct that didn't even exist until the 17 hundreds when the notion of the natural inferiority arose to justify the treatment and enslavement in the

first place. >> you can watch this and others online at booktv.org. the national book critics circle comprised of members of the book publishing industry recently announced its finalists for the outstanding books of 2017 including the work of the gulf of mexico [inaudible] one of the things i learned from reading debate for reading this

event with my parents when of the things i realized is to live the best life you can so you don't have any regrets at the end. >> do we find that message? >> most of us don't want to concentrate on our mortality that one of the things as diverse veterans writes in his book she was living by and the difference is that you constantly are aware that you have an expiration date. it's something that lies ahead thabut people know that every

single day. ideally it would be good if we all lived like that. >> [inaudible conversations] good afternoon. please take your seats. we are trying to stay on time so i'd like to get started as soon as possible. good afternoon. i would like to welcome you back to this session at miami book