Press room
Romney will hit key primary states on book tour - Boston Globe
'No Apology’ looks at nation’s standing in world
WASHINGTON - Later this winter, Mitt Romney will strike out on a national book tour, but unlike his party’s most successful recent author he does not expect to make headlines with bits of fresh gossip from the 2008 campaign, see his fans camp overnight outside bookstores, or chat with Oprah Winfrey about his family.
“Inevitably there are going to be comparisons with the Sarah Palin book,’’ said Eric Fehrnstrom, a Romney spokesman. “We’re not going to match her crowd size or sales. These are two different people with different ways of expressing themselves.’’
The March 2 release of “No Apology: The Case for American Greatness,’’ will kick off a monthlong tour taking the former Massachusetts governor to at least 18 states, including Iowa, where Romney’s presidential campaign collapsed nearly two years ago after a second-place caucus finish.
But Romney, considered by many in the party to be the default Republican front-runner for the 2012 nomination, is approaching the book tour with the patient, workmanlike mien that has distinguished him from other probable contenders who seem far more eager for attention.
“Romney is playing things very methodically and deliberatively,’’ said Mark McKinnon, a former media adviser to President George W. Bush and 2008 Republican nominee John McCain. “I think he understands the physics of this game very well now and is carefully calibrating his approach to 2012.’’
“No Apology’’ will be Romney’s second book. The first, “Turnaround: Crisis, Leadership, and the Olympic Games,’’ a narrative account of Romney’s stewardship of the 2002 Winter Games in Salt Lake City, was published in 2004, while he was governor. At the time, Romney held a book party at the Boston Public Library, signings in Massachusetts and Utah, and conducted a series of radio interviews.
This time Romney has assembled a far more ambitious itinerary, organized by his publisher, St. Martin’s Press, and the Macmillan Speakers Bureau, which represents Romney in speeches before nonpolitical groups. In Iowa, Romney will visit Des Moines and Ames, where he will speak at Iowa State University. (Romney has yet to confirm appearances in New Hampshire and South Carolina, two other early primary states.)
St. Martin’s will print 200,000 copies of Romney’s book, far less than HarperCollins’s 1.5 million-copy first printing of Palin’s “Going Rogue,’’ which reportedly sold 1 million copies within its first two weeks. Romney has not disclosed the amount of his advance, but a spokesman says he will contribute his earnings to a charity he has yet to name.
St. Martin’s has no plans to purchase print ads promoting Romney’s book, but will rely on promotional e-mail messages to a supporter list maintained by Romney’s political action committee and online advertising targeted at his backers, including more than 118,000 registered fans on Facebook.