You're Fired (Up)! Trump's Audiobook Crash Course
by Shannon Maughan, PW Daily for Booksellers -- Publishers Weekly, 4/30/2004
It was a challenge that real estate mogul, author and star of The Apprentice Donald Trump could surely appreciate. Simon & Schuster Audio got on board for the Donald's latest project--the finance book Trump: How to Get Rich (Random House)--and moved from manuscript to master recording of the audiobook edition in just two weeks. To accomplish such a speedy turnaround, clearly there was no one like Omarosa on the S&S Audio production team.
Though it just missed a simultaneous release with the March 23 hardcover, S&S landed its unabridged CD on store shelves by early April, still in plenty of time to capitalize on the publicity generated by The Apprentice, which aired its final episode on April 15. "Random House was on a crash schedule to finish the book in time for the season finale," recalled S&S Audio publisher Chris Lynch. "We found out from one of our accounts that there wasn't going to be an audiobook and that Trump was too busy to record the book himself." Despite the timing of the project and the potential narration problem, Lynch was eager to join the Trump fray anyhow. "I didn't see those as obstacles," he said.
Indeed, Lynch found a way around one of those hurdles when he was able to convince Trump to record an introduction. "He was too busy to schedule any studio time, but when we told him that we would come to him, he agreed," said Lynch. "We sent our producer and engineer to Trump Tower and recorded him in a conference room there. I'm told it looked very much like the one seen on TV, but that it was actually on a different floor."
Actor Barry Bostwick took the baton hand-off and read the rest of the manuscript. "Trump was very pleased to hear that Barry was doing it," Lynch noted. "They had worked together on an episode of Spin City when Trump made a guest appearance." Lynch said having someone other than Trump read the book shouldn't hurt sales. "Despite Trump's celebrity, it is a finance book. As a recording that's appealing as a business title, it will have longer sales legs than a celebrity book would."
But celebrity buzz has its perks, of course. One of those perks was the featuring of a sneak-preview soundclip of the audiobook on Amazon.com's homepage. It's too early to tell what effect the exposure may have had on sales. But, Lynch commented, "Even if it's minimal, it was worth it to have an audio clip featured so prominently." And certainly, the media saturation and Trump's TV appearances over the past month have helped boost awareness.
Not that Trump is ever out of the spotlight for long. Just today, for example, he confirmed that he and his longtime girlfriend, Melania Knauss, have become engaged. Moreover, Clear Channel said yesterday that Trump will host a national radio show called Trumped, which will address a range of subjects and make its debut June 15. In addition, a new season of The Apprentice is planned for fall, and Lynch says that S&S Audio will tie in to any publicity opportunities it can, to remind people of the audiobook's availability.
Though the outcome thus far is what S&S hoped for, Lynch cautioned that crashing a book is a pretty rare occurrence. "We made the deal at the beginning of March and had a finished master in two weeks," said Lynch. "The production team did a tremendous job--it was a major feat. It was an unusual situation because we were also crashing two other books at the same time--the Richard Clarke book [Against All Enemies] and The Automatic Millionaire. You can't do it too often, though. It's really only worth it if you know it's going to be a bestseller." And, hey--that's the kind of risk-taking the Donald would surely applaud.
