basically. he's heard of conscious about what he is doing and what he says. virginia doesn't matter, the puritans matter, why, because they wrote it down. but that's total logical in the sense that he thinks about them because they wrote. any last questions or comments for today? okay. i want to leave a little bit of time to hand back your papers and we will wrap it up. we will be fareed douglas for thursday and then we will get to tocqueville next week.

on about books, we delve into the latest news about the publishing industry with interesting insider interviews with publishing industry experts. we'll will also give you updates on current nonfiction authors and books the latest book reviews and we will talk about the current nonfiction books featured on c-span's book tv. >> host: welcome to add about books. in this episode we welcome to about books, in this episode, we will talk with longtime book publisher marty ross. and we will look at some of the latest books from current and former members of congress. we will start with this week's publishing industry news. missy angel is the new president for the last -- just joins a long group of

women who have joined publishing houses. including dana kennedy, lisa lucas at pantheon, and adrian vaughan at bloomsbury usa. in other news, borders reports that french legislation is taking aim at amazon shipping costs of customers in the country. french law prohibits discounting the price of new books. amazon charges one cent to get around that, and the new legislation would set a minimum delivery fee. the french minister of culture said, quote, this law is necessary to regulate the distorted competition with online book sales and prevent the inevitable monopoly that will emerge if the status quo persists. amazon argues that the law will hurt customers in rural areas of friends. in other news, performing artist salons has started a

library of rare books by black writers and artists. the saint here on library collection, named after salon just studio, contains 50 books that are available on the first term, first serve basis. the inaugural collection was selected by rosa duffey who owns the atlanta bookstore keeps. for more information on solange's book shop, go on her website. and according to an pd book stand, book sales were up to 3% last week. they are up almost 11% year today. joining us now to offer her thoughts on the current state of publishing is a long time president and publisher that marjory ross. marjorie, when did you leave mark mary and what did you these days? >> thanks for asking. i stepped down in january of

2020. and move to the country in central virginia and started my own book publishing consulting business. >> and what kind of authors are you working with? are you working with publishers? >> i am working with both. publishers and authors. it's a lot of fun. i get to spend more time doing the part of book publishing that i really love. which is helping authors make sure their books are impactful and interesting, and relevant, and compelling, and well positioned for their brand. i get to spend almost all my time working with publishers and authors on developing great books. >> your 20 years at regnery, who are some of the authors that you published? >> we published pretty much every thought leader and celebrity author you can think of. on the conservative --

conservative side of the aisle. that includes david limbaugh, dinesh desousa, newt gingrich, dennis prager, michelle nelkin i, coulter, laura ingram, a molly hemingway, sebastian gorka mark stein mark la ben, the list is long. and it was an amazing opportunity for need to work one-on-one with so many influential, interesting, provocative authors. >> one of the authors that you publish that you did mention was donald trump. >> we did publish donald trump! published a book called time to get tough. which really set the stage honestly for his presidential run. we published that back in 2011, i think, when he flirted with the idea of running and then

decided not to. but that was the beginning of him speaking out on national and international political issues. >> the marjory ross, in a previous conversation that you and i had, you mentioned that, once he declared, in 2016, he was running for president, that you went back and read his old stuff and you saw no discrepancies in position. >> that's such an interesting thing. one of the reasons why went back honestly, and read his ossoff, it was because when he declared that he was going to run, we thought, well we published this, well maybe we should publish the paperback addition. that seems like a good marketing decision at this point. so, we thought, well, maybe will have to update a lot of it, maybe will have to change a lot of things. and it was remarkable to me going back to that book which had been written three or four years earlier and there was

nothing that he had said then, in 2011, that he wasn't still saying in 2015 during his campaign. that really impressed me. and, as we know with politicians, he is not your conventional politician, that's just one more way that he broke the mold. >> was it tough for them regnery to be unapologetically conservative? >> we i would say no. i would say it's tougher to try to play to a lot of different audiences. it's tougher to not know who you are and not lean into your brand. it's much tougher to not be clear about who your audiences, who you are target market is. we, as you said, are unapologetically conservative. most of the people who work at

that regnery have been in our conservative group. so what we're able to promise authors and readers, and deliberately -- deliver to authors and readers, is an understanding of the market. they empathy with the market that very few other publishers have. marjory ross, ever since leaving regnery, has been sending out a weekly newsletter, you can read it on her website. do you feel a little unleashed, or is it the same things you are saying as a publisher? >> i feel a little bit unleashed. there is nothing that i'm saying now that i haven't thought as a publisher. so i haven't changed my point of view. but it certainly is true that i have more latitude, more flexibility, running my own

shop. i'm sure that's true for anyone. so my [inaudible] husband sort of a work -- passion play for me. as you said, it's on marjory ross consulting.com. and every week, almost every week, sometimes i miss a week, i try to speak out on something that i find interesting. that i hope other people find interesting. that is kind of at the nexus of publishing in media and current events and culture. >> in one of your blog posts, you talk about cancel culture. you talk about that relatively frequently. but i want to read a quote to you and have you walk us through this. this is from marjory ross, quote, no matter how much you try to duck for cover, sooner or later, the woke police will find you. no matter how far you run, you

cannot hide. >> sad, but true. and i think -- i felt compelled to say that because i think there's still a lot of people who think, well, if i simply keep my head down, or if i simply say the right thing and just be wet i would consider to be a nice, kind person, i can get along. i can that -- i won't be canceled, but i also won't be vilified, marginalized, attacked. and i don't think that's true. i think, unfortunately, there are culture has gotten to a place where it's not enough to just keep your opinions to yourself. increasingly, there is demand, at least four people who are

public figures and people who are -- other people listen to, influencers or authors, there is a demand, there is pressure to endorse a particular narrative, not just be quiet if you don't agree. and that is a very, very dangerous place for us to be. and i think that it is a challenge to publishers and other people in the media to have the courage of their convictions and realize that, honestly, they might as well say what they think because they are going to be punished for not agreeing with things that they find reprehensible. >> so margie, why do you think vice president mike pence or josh hawley would go to simon into stir and go through

several extra hoops rather than being published by regnery? >> there are -- of course, i don't know. and either case specifically. but there are two obvious reasons that come to mind. one is, hope that they can navigate their way through a very liberal very woke culture that at the big publishing houses that they can navigate their way through. and still be able to get their message out. and the other answer is money. unfortunately, there are, for the biggest celebrity authors, the new york publishers office will still pay a very big advance. and that's not to say that regnery hasn't paid very big advances we have. but in some cases, they will overpay, new york will overpay,

for authors because they like the idea of the celebrity on their list. although i think it's changing as well. as we've seen recently, they're a lot of big celebrities, donald trump being number one, big celebrity authors that new york has said they won't publish. so, i think it is -- my belief is it is incumbent upon all [inaudible] is this a partner that i feel that has enough integrity to work with? they're in a lot of cases, i think the answer might be no. >> in one of your blog posts, you talk about the mike pence and simon introduced a connection in the fact that he was going to be regularly law

[inaudible] in his writing. >> i think two things about that. i think he may be rigorously edited. but i think that very public declaration by folks at simon interest or that he was going to be regularly edited was very consciously made directed at their their most progressive most left leaning fans and employees. i think they said it to try to placate or reassure the people who didn't like the fact that they were publishing mike pence no matter what he said. and there was a big petition that was circulated at simon into. stir against the idea of protesting. the idea that they were publishing a book by the former vice president of the united states.

and so i think a large part of that proclamation and then he was going to be rigorously edited was to say don't worry, we're going to basically force him to stay in and within these very tight guidelines. which, as an author i find both insulting and worrisome. >> we're talking with marty ross former regnery publishing. a look at the world of the publishing industry. marty ross, wrote another piece called the big lie and it was about the new york times book review. what was that about? >> when this is a story that is not actually a new story for the insiders for the conservative but publishing that unfortunately it's news to most people are just consumers

of both and that is the new york times bestseller list is an editorial prop. they've actually claimed that. as an editorial product. the problem i have with that is it's supposed to be simply a data driven list. and it's not. and so regnery experienced time and time again situation a book that hadn't eat so the most copies and more copies than any other book in the country for a given week which should have pretty straightforward leave meant that would be the number one book, number one best-selling book, did not appear is the number one best-selling book on the new york times list and in fact sometimes not appear at all on the list. and that is one of unfortunately many examples and

increasing numbers of examples of the media irresponsibly and my opinion distorting the news. >> so marjorie, when it comes to conservative books and awards, how are they treated? pulitzer prizes, national book award, book at the year, etc. >> they're ignored. they're largely ignored and marginalized and it's very rare that you will see a conservative thought when any sort of award where there is sort of editorial discretion and judgment as opposed to simply just looking at the sales numbers or the quality of the work. when i say editorial discretion i mean when somebody subjective can put together their list and

of course that's where the award is, their own politics and their own worldview enters in and unfortunately i'm not sure there is anyone with a conservative world view who is participating in any of these book awards who is a judge for any of these bigger words. i've not been able to find one. and so what you get once again is the impression that is made for readers and consumers that there are not any good conservative books or that they are lower quality. that is just another sort of insidious bias that lives within the book world. and it forces conservatives to have to work a little bit harder to find the books that resonate with them. >> your most recent columns about publishers weekly, and its list of -- >> yes, this is just --

it's interesting when you talk about what it means to have conservative or liberal fiction. a lot of people say what is that? they are just stories. and so in a lot of cases when the most insidious types of bias is the promotion -- the ceaseless, relentless promotion of fiction from a, with a very liberal progressive worldview, set cast of characters, set of values and that is what we are seeing in pwc latest top ten book. weather is not a single book in the top ten that features a white male protagonist. they're just gone. their canceled out. they are erased from the

landscape. i am a big fan of having strong female characters. that's great, but the idea that there are zero strong characters, especially white males, is unfair to every reader. it is certainly sending a message to young readers that there are no role models or heroes when it comes to white men. >> and to quote marji row one more time, virtue signaling as fracturing our society. >> that is exactly right. it is ironic to me that the folks claim to want inclusiveness, we plane to want to heal the racial divide and who pointed conservative and

trump as the culprits in creating the partisan divide, are the first in line to identify people by race. are the first in line to want to separate our country and our culture, rather than finding the things that bring us together. that is one of the things that a great book can do. it can bring people to gather with human values and human heroism and courage, and emotion. it's that everyone shares, rather than trying to vulcanize and marginalize conservatives. >> joining us on about books is marji ross, longtime president of regnery books and now in business for herself at marjory ross consulting.com.

thank you for your time. >> thank you so much. >> this is the about books program and podcast on book tv and c-span. we look at some of the latest publishing news and nonfiction books. each year there is a slew of new books by former and current members of congress, and this year is no exception. here is some of the latest. in two roads diverged, former republican congressman and governor of south carolina, mark sanford weighs in on the future of his party, former democratic senator ben nelson of nebraska focuses on the lack of bipartisanship in the senate and offers his thoughts on how to restore it. his book is called death of the senate. and in the clock and the calendar, former republican congressman doug collins of georgia offers a first account of president trump 2019 impeachment hearing. the republican congressman jim jordan of ohio reflects on

president trump's tenure in do what you said you would do. democratic congresswoman she stables also has a new book out. the kansas congresswoman reflects on her life and path to washington. it's a children's book and it's called sharice's big voice. midnight in washington, california democratic congressman adam schiff recounts his experiences as the leader of the first impeachment trial of president trump. congressman schiff recently spoke about this book on our other interview program afterwards. here is a portion. >> if kevin mccarthy were ever to become speaker, essentially donald trump would be speaker. he would not disagree with him, ever. and you would have an outside party effectively running the house of representatives and an unethical one. the story, as you know, that i tell in the book, i told because it was so characteristic. mccarthy and i were sitting on

a plane flying back to washington. this was in 2010. the midterms were about six months away. we were having an idol conversation about who was with him -- the democrats would win. he said the republicans would win. and the movie started to really escape to the movie. we landed. i thought nothing of the conversation and we went our separate ways. that made, unbeknownst to me a briefing of the press in which he told the press that everybody knew the republicans are going to in the midst term -- how dumb schiff admitted and republicans are going to have them in terms. i didn't learn about this till the morning when the newspaper came out, and i was just aghast. it was astounded. i saw him and said kevin, first of all we were having a private conversation. that was a private conversation. but if it wasn't, you know is that the exact opposite of what you told the press. it looks at me and says, yeah, i know, adam, but you know how it goes. i was like kevin, no, i don't

know how it goes. you just make stuff up and that's how you operate? because that's not how i operate. well that is how he operates. you can't have someone with such little regard for the truth serving as the speaker of the house. and indeed, this is i think one of the most destructive things over the last several years. mccarthy was ahead of his time in his lack of devotion to the truth, but over the last four years there's been this relentless assault by trump and his accolades on the truth itself. probably must expressed by giuliani who said the truth was not truth. and conway who said they were entitled to their own alternate facts. if we can't agree on very basic facts, and we don't have the same shared experience -- doesn't work. democracy doesn't work. >> he recently had the opportunity to sit down with senate minority mitch mcconnell to get a look at his reading

list. >> not surprisingly i tend to tilt toward american history. ookmuch of it political. but actually, one book i just finished was not about politics. it was about the history of the polio epidemic. from beginning to end. it came out in 20 or six. i actually won a pulitzer prize. as a polio victim myself, i've always had a kind of special interest in it. i thought with the pandemic going on there were lessons there, particularly with regards to vaccines and one of the things we've been preaching lately is get vaccinated. of course one of the big differences between the situation we found ourselves in now and polio is it took 70 years. 70 years to come up with two effective vaccines for polio. how marvelous, our marvelous

country and pharmaceutical industry came up with three effective vaccines in less than one year. to give us an opportunity to get past the pandemic. >> and you can watch senator mcconnell's entire interview about his current reading list on our website, book tv dot org. here is a look at some of the books being published this week. hillary clinton's advisor, hula abalone recalls her life and career in both flash and economist and president trump's former trade adviser, peter navarro looks at the start of the corona pandemic and the 2020 presidential election. his book is called and trump time. and an entertaining race, georgetown university professor michael eric dyson, examines the role of race in america. also being published this week, a new book by former republican speaker of the house, newt gingrich, he argues that untie

american believes are gaining traction within the united states, his latest book is called beyond bite. in the broken constitution, harvard law professor -- noah, describes a abraham lincoln to the constitution and fox news as brian killarney looks at the relationship between lincoln and frederick douglass in the president and the freedom fight. those are some of the new books being published this week. you will see them on book tv. with each week, book tv produces a program called afterwards. and on this week's episode of our other interview program, entrepreneur -- argues that corporate america is signing on to quote woke culture only to increase profit. he discussed his book with harvard university economics professor and former george w. bush economics adviser, greg mann q. here's a little bit of their conversation. >> i think there's something to

be said for really exploring the way in which maybe wokeness can stand on its own two feet when it isn't intermingled with capitalism. i take aim at not just the woke ideology in its own right, but it's murdered with capitalism. it takes both the progressive values that corporations are asked to be stewards of, as well as tainting -- in its own right. that's actually with the heart of the book is about more so than criticizing one end of the political spectrum or the other. >> that was author vivek. you can watch all previous episodes on our apposite, book tv dot org. it's also available as a podcast. c-span now. finally, here's some of the best selling nonfiction books this week, according to the new york times. topping the list is a book that we won't be covering on book tv

and it's musician they've those memories, the storyteller. after grant. to the report on the transition between the trump and biden administration and wrapping up our look at some of "the new york times" best-selling nonfiction books is midnight in washington, that's california democratic congressman adam schiff's argument that the trump presidency has weakened america's institution. and that is a look at this week's publishing news and the latest nonfiction books. thanks for joining us on about books. and a reminder that about books is available as a podcast on c-span's app, c-spanoretta hunno

teaches a class about baseball during the great depression.