6-15-2026
'Fact-checking nightmare':
Publishers are openly mocking Trump's inability to land a book deal.
A presidential memoir by Donald Trump would almost certainly become a best seller, but the problem is nobody wants to publish one.
The twice-impeached one-term president is struggling to score a major book deal, which is unheard of in the literary world, because publishers worry that the memoir would be ripped apart by fact-checkers and because the Trump brand is radioactive
after the Jan. 6 insurrection, reported Politico.
"It would be too hard to get a book that was factually accurate, actually," said one major figure in the book publishing industry. "That would be the problem. If he can't even admit that he lost the election, then how do you publish that?"
Publishing a Trump memoir would be a logistical nightmare
that could drive away talent from any publisher who took on the project, said another insider.
"It doesn't matter what the upside on a Trump book deal is,
the headaches the project would bring would far outweigh
the potential in the eyes of a major publisher,"
said Keith Urbahn, president and founding partner
of the Javelin literary and creative agency.
"Any editor bold enough to acquire the Trump memoir is
looking at a fact-checking nightmare, an exodus of other authors,
and a staff uprising in the unlikely event they strike a deal with the former president."
Trump claims that he's received two offers "from the most
unlikely of publishers" but says he isn't ready to make
a deal yet, and he insisted to Politico in a statement that
"two of the biggest and most prestigious publishing houses
have made very substantial offers which I have rejected."
"That doesn't mean I won't accept them sometime in the
future, as I have started writing the book,"
the former president told the website. "If my book will be the biggest of them all,
and with 39 books written or being written about me, does anybody really believe that they are above making a lot of money? Some of
the biggest sleezebags [sic] on earth run these companies."
Industry sources, however, are skeptical.
"He's screwed over so many publishers that before
he ran for president none of the big 5 would work with [him] anymore," said one industry insider.
Another industry source openly mocked Trump's claims.
"It's likely that a few unlikely people did approach him"
said an industry source in a text message.
"But that could be, like, a publisher in Zimbabwe."
That source punctuated their joke with a laughing/crying emoji, while still another mocked
the ex-president.
"Somebody could have offered him $100 it doesn't mean anything."
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