Romney book a stock item at Staples
It may not have been a runaway best-seller, but Governor Mitt Romney's memoir of his time at the helm of the Salt Lake City Winter Olympics has achieved a different status: It has become a
Romney's book, "Turnaround: Crisis, Leadership, and the Olympic Games" has had a place in the office supply chain's small book sections for months, alongside the management manuals and the megahits such as former president Bill Clinton's "My Life."
On Friday, Staples will be attempting to breathe new life into sales of the governor's tome with a book-signing at the Staples store in Brighton, which was the first store in the successful office supply chain.
The support goes both ways. In the mid-1980s, Romney helped Staples founder Tom Stemberg out when, as head of a venture capital firm called Bain Capital, the future governor poured mountains of money into the fledgling office supply business.
In the years since, Staples employees poured thousands of dollars into Romney's political campaigns. When he was running for governor, Romney held a press conference at the company's Framingham headquarters. After he was elected, Romney put Stemberg on his transition team on jobs and the economy. Romney spokeswoman Shawn Feddeman said the book signing was Stemberg's idea. She said the governor will be dropping by "during his lunch hour."
Staples sales figures were not available for Romney's book yesterday, but the memoir ranks 85,350th on the sales list at Amazon.com.
Staples will be trying to improve that: Spokeswoman Julie Mittelman said the Brighton store has ordered 200 extra copies of the book for the signing "to make sure we have enough for the customers." To draw in those customers, there's bait that would make a business guru proud: The first 20 people to rush into the store get the Romney book for free.
