brian: laurence leamer, you are now an owner of 15 books you have written. why did you do books?aurence: i could not make a living writing magazine articles. i tried. i could not write fast enough, so i wrote books. i did not make much of a living for a while. but i kept at it, the secret is persistence. brian: ho

our guest has been laurence leamer. thank you very much.captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2016] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] ♪ ♪ ♪ or to free transcripts, give us your comments about this program, visit us at q-and-a.org. q and interview,iked this here are some others you might enjoy. dick lehr on "birth of a ofion," and its portrayal african-americans in the post-civil war era. and robert dallek. find these interviews and more on c-span.org. journal, live every day with news and policy issues that impact you. coming up, a columnist for the washington examiner joins us to discuss her work as a pollster. then, the director of urban policy initiatives for the urban institute will talk about the latest threats to affordable housing and ways that cities are trying to expand the affordable housing. managementirector of at the government accountability office to discuss federal funding efforts when it comes to a federal disa

in the middle east. ♪ announcer: this week on "q&a," author laurence leamer talking about his latest ok "the lynching." , you areurence leamer now an owner of 15 books you have written. why did you do books? mr. leamer: i cannot do a living writing magazine articles. i tried. i cannot write fast enough, so i wrote books. i did not make much of a living for a while. the secret is persistence. brian: how do you pick your books? mr. leamer: it is a stupid thing to do. i should choose an area and keep at it, but i wanted to do something much different. experience different lives. when you write a nonfiction book, you are thinking back in somebody's life. i want to piggyback on as many lives as i can. brian: of the 15 books, which one sold the most? mr. leamer: the kennedy women by long-sought -- long shot. -- ak about a multigenerational book about women. nobody had ever written a multigenerational book about women. to put women at the forefront just totally changed things. the kennedyabout women do you most remember and what did the audience want to hear when you talk to them? -- ieamer:

leamer survived living in palm beach? what is the story? laurencei had never been to palm beach before. remember the willie smith trial when he was accused of ripping this woman in palm beach? a kennedy relative. he was the precursor to oj. there were hundreds of journalists down there and i was one of them. i stayed at a hotel in palm beach. i said, this is the strangest place i have ever seen. there is no life. nobody is there, nobody in the streets, no bathroom on the beach. there is no place to eat if you want to get a cup of coffee or something. this is bizarre. i thought, i'm going to get a place here and write a book about it. i got a place -- i tell this story in the book, we get this condominium and suddenly everybody treats me terribly. i mean, they come in, i had a --k and the people came in the board members, they would not sit down. no, they would not sit down. they were just incredibly unpleasant to me. i could not figure out what it was. christmas rolls around and my wife is the world's ultimate shopper. she said we needed a christmas

in the middle east. ♪ announcer: this week on "q&a," author laurence leamer talking about his latest nching." , you areurence leamer now an owner of 15 books you have written. why did you do books? mr. leamer: i cannot do a living writing magazine articles. i tried. i cannot write fast e

. ♪ announcer: this week on "q&a," author laurence leamer. mr.eamer talks about his writing career and his latest book, "the lynching: the epic courtroom battle that brought down the klan." brian: laurence leamer, you are now an owner of 15 books you have written. why did you do books? laurence: i could not make a living writing magazine articles. i tried. i could not write fast enough, and i started writing books. i did not make much of a living for quite a while. but i kept at it. me, is the secret is persistence. brian: how do you pick your books? laurence: it is a stupid thing to do. i should choose an area and keep at it, but i wanted to do something much different. experience different lives. when you write a nonfiction book, you are thinking back in somebody's life. i want to piggyback on as many lives as i can. brian: of the 15 books, which one sold the most? laurence: "the kennedy women," by a longshot. that was the number two "your times" bestseller. brian: why was that? laurence: it was such an incredible idea. my agent's idea about a

. >> thundershower laurence leamer talks about his latest book "the lynching" the epic courtroom battle that brought down the klan about the trial ollowing the 1981 killing of 19-year-old michael donald by the k.k.k. in mobile, alabama. >> michael is this teenager. he's trained to become a brick layer. the youngest of seven children. he's helping his mother in their house and his aunt wants to ask him to go out and get a pack of cigarettes. gives him a dollar. puts it in his wallet. goes out in his old -- and this old buick pulled up behind him and james pulls out his pistol and orders him into the back southeast the car. he knows when he gets in that car what's going to happen. he's a black man in alabama and you know. >> sunday night at 8:00 eastern on c-span's "q & a." with the national park service celebrating its centennial anniversary today several park rangers went to the whate house to meet with president and the president tweeted this picture saying 100 years and going strong. thanks national park service for your service. so our kids enjoy our parks as much as we have. earlier

leamer, can you make a living off of writing books? laurence: i hit the wave. i hit it. i would be ashamed to tell you how big several of my advances were, ok? they were enormous, ok? i will tell you, i am 74-years-old, ok? i got a million-dollar advance for the kennedy women. three times i got a million-dollar advance. now i get 10% of that sometimes. ok? that is what is happening to publishing. it is hard to make it living. people are discovering new ways. that is why i am thinking of self-publishing. just last week i was thinking about that. maybe we can do this. new ways to do this. that is the greatness of the -- entrepreneurial greatness of america. we're constantly reinventing ourselves. brian: did the publisher get their million dollars back? laurence: they sure as hell did. and i got a lot more out of that one. brian: besides the advance, you got more money? laurence: when i started writing, nobody would ever talk about money. i'm embarrassed i even said that. sit around a group of writers, no. now, people talk about it all the time. even if they are writing boo