Alan Greenspan Tops Online Bestseller Lists

Posted on September 21, 2007

Former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan has topped the Amazon.com bestseller list with his memoir The Age of Turbulence: Adventures in a New World. Greenspan's book was highly critical of the Bush administration which has probably helped with book sales. In the book Greenspan also warns that the Euro could eventually outperform the U.S. dollar. Bloomberg reports that The Age of Turbulence is number one on Amazon.com ahead of O.J. Simpson's controversial title, If I Did It.

Alan Greenspan's new memoir topped the best-seller list at Amazon.com Inc. for a second day as the former Federal Reserve chairman showed that people still want to hear what he has to say.
"The Age of Turbulence: Adventures in a New World," which went on sale yesterday, was ranked ahead of O.J. Simpson's book, "If I Did It: Confessions of the Killer," and the last Harry Potter book by J.K. Rowling on Amazon.com, the world's largest Internet retailer.
Greenspan, 81, led the Fed for 18 years until January 2006, and is widely considered to have played a major role in engineering the 1991-2001 economic expansion, the longest in U.S. history. The 531-page book recounts his childhood in New York, his relationships with the six presidents he served and his outlook for the U.S. economy in 2030.
"It will be a best seller in the narrow circles of Wall Street, government, Washington and top businessmen and women," said Edward Atorino, an analyst who follows the publishing industry at Benchmark Co. in New York.
First-day sales of the memoir, published by Penguin Press, "far exceeded our expectations," said Antoinette Ercolano, vice president for trade-book buying at Barnes & Noble Inc., the world's biggest bookstore chain.

CNN/Money says the book is also the bestselling title on Barnes and Noble's website. Alan Greenspan was paid an advance over $8.5 million by Penguin Press to write the book. Based on the book's very strong sales it looks like the huge advance was worth it.