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How to write a bestseller, the easy way

By Mike Huckabee

January 6, 2018
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Question: If you wanted to write a book that, because of the subject matter, was guaranteed to be published and even to be a best-seller if it were salacious enough, but you were too lazy or irresponsible or agenda-driven to check facts and determine the reliability of every story, what would you do to just let yourself off the hook for that?

Easy! You’d simply write an introduction saying it was impossible to verify what you’d written and leaving it up to the reader to come to his or her own conclusions. Wow, would that save you a ton of work! You wouldn’t even need to hire any researchers, which means you’d get to keep more of that hard-earned (not) advance. Best of all, you wouldn’t have to take out any of the really negative stories that might not pan out but that you know would get you the most press, especially if you released a tantalizing excerpt before the official publication date. The book could essentially include anything you wanted to say. And, hey, if something turned out to be less than accurate or even a big fat lie, it wouldn’t be your fault. It would be the reader’s fault for believing it.

Think of it! You wouldn’t have to edit anything out, no matter how ridiculous. And the crazier it was, the higher your sales figures would be.

That is exactly what author Michael Wolff did in his prologue for his new book “FIRE AND FURY: Inside the Trump White House.” Here’s just one example of the weaseling: “Many of the accounts of what happened in the Trump White House are in conflict with one another; many, in Trumpian fashion, are baldly untrue. These conflicts, and that looseness with the truth, if not with reality itself, are an elemental thread of the book.”

In other words, since he’s decided that facts don’t matter in Trump World, he doesn’t have to let them matter to him, either. Why, he can print absolutely anything he wants. And, apparently, he did.

This book doesn’t merit the attention it’s getting, so I won’t have much more to say about it. It should be in the remainder bins soon. Just thought you’d like to know how this author got himself out of verifying what he wrote, in case you ever want to write a salacious bestseller without accepting any responsibility for what’s in it.

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Comments 1-43 of 43

  • John M. Gonser

    01/14/2018 04:37 PM

    Many years ago my then-teen son decided to have some fun with his friends by misleading them on several issues. So he started his conversation with, "Have you heard that ...," and would insert the most outrageous commentary he had thought of for this purpose. Then he would lay low and watch to see how rapidly his "information" would spread and what form it would take. Very often he would hear that his original comment was expanded and given an air of truth, and sometimes an official bureau or public figure would be "quoted" as the originating source for the rumor. I think our MSM is using his methodology today. This book is an example.

  • Joan Chambers

    01/12/2018 11:24 AM


    Governor Mike Huckabee,

    A comment about the 'Wise Guys' program last week end - I didn't know how to ask and you ask for comments - thank you

    Oliver North mentioned that couples get more in tax returns because they want families to stay together. I am a single senior citizen whose husband died - what are they doing for me and others like me? My family is grown. Thank you and God's Blessings.

    I like The Huckabee show the very best - you are fair and balanced and say what you think and I appreciate - great views. You and your show are enjoyable - thank you.

  • James Garcia

    01/09/2018 07:54 PM

    Governor, President Trump should sue. Sue all the liars. Tie them up in court. Maybe he'll get enough to pay off the national debt. Huckabee is the most refreshing program we watch. Love it and love Somebody's Gotta Do it. Blessings and may God protect you.
    Cordially,
    Jim Garcia

  • Karen Overbay

    01/09/2018 06:48 PM

    Completely agree. Wolfe admitted that he never had a formal interview with the president and most of his info came in early Feb. 2017 and all of his connections are now gone. Even CBS morning reporter really hit hard with questions about the facts of said interview and he said that he just talked with the pretense that he was interviewing him.

  • Mary McCauley

    01/09/2018 12:32 AM

    Gov. Huckabee, I do research. I wrote one book and researched information in it. It wasn't a big seller, but I am satisfied that I did my best on my first book. I cannot stand to post on Facebook without researching some things that pop up. If it sounds crazy, then it's usually not true. A lot of fake stuff on Facebook.

  • Mary Euler

    01/08/2018 10:14 PM

    The President named the mainstream media "Fake News" so the book Michael Wolff did called “FIRE AND FURY: Inside the Trump White House.” It SHOULD BE CALLED: "FRAUD & FAKE " "A Book of FICTION: Inside the Trump White House according to Michael Wolff.” It needs to be repeated numerous times like Hannity does of Tump's accomplishments list and what Hillary's "done wrong" list. If it is said enough the sane people (except the crazy leftists) will pass up buying it.
    By the way, I've renamed CNN too - the Communist News Network. Feel free to use either with my permission unless I am not the 1st one to put it out there.

  • Elizabeth G Honaker

    01/08/2018 09:44 PM

    Great day in da mornin' !!! WHY, oh WHY didn't I think of this BEFORE?? Why research -- look up historical events -- try to align historical dates with each other -- check characterization, plot, setting, mood -- or any of that literary rubbish -- when creating historical fiction? Why ask ANY questions, when all your readers want are...fictitious facts?

    The world has gone insane, and truly LOVE what Stephen King calls those "alligators in the basement."

  • Connie Olsen

    01/08/2018 07:51 PM

    Beyond frustrating that today...anybody can say, literally, anything against anyone...and get away with it!??? That publisher and author should be called to task!!! At the very least,it should be labeled "fiction"! And...this is against an acting President...putting the entire country at greater risk in war times (as if we don't already exhibit weakness...passed on down to us by the Obama administration!) ...to a world already "gone mad!" This country is headed for the abyss as it continues to demonstrate over and over and over again...that there will be no consequences to evil and wrong doings!!!? How I long for the day of the Lord's return. I'm thinking that it could be just around the bend...
    Blessings to all the Huckabees!!! and your readers, as well!!

  • George Curl

    01/08/2018 07:46 PM

    My first comment is on the book release. I tell folks when they come out to watch where you step. Always avoid the steaming cow pies. I've read excerpts of this new book, and all I can think of is, "Watch where you step!"
    I read your article about "Raw Water" with great interest. I think we should allow any and everybody to drink all they want. Kind like same sex marriage and sexual reassignment surgery, sooner or later the problem takes care of itself.

  • Carol Breeden

    01/08/2018 06:43 PM

    I appreciate the truth you send us. I did not buy the book and don't intend too. It sounds like it is just another media "fake news", and it seems it is something we can count on these days. I believe President Trump was ordained by God, and we know that "truth" will win in the end!!!!

  • NAncy (NAN) Isaacson

    01/08/2018 05:54 PM

    Dear MIKE:
    Love your show. Please consider having J D FARAG, A CHRISTIAN PASTOR, born in Lebanon into a Muslim home, on your show. He is on YOUTUBE, He gives an explanation of who the Palestinians really are and why they have no right whatsoever to the Israeli land.
    The American people need to hear what he has to say. Please put him on your show to explain the truth about these renegades who are trying to steal what belongs to Israel. It's a very interesting story.

    Thank you,

    Nan Isaacson

  • Adam Perkins

    01/08/2018 05:37 PM

    Are you sure Mr. Wolfe isn't a Soviet era Russian? His book sounds like the same handling of the truth. You know like the State run airliner, having disappeared, never took off.

  • Cynthia Pacheco

    01/08/2018 05:24 PM

    It sounds like "it's much ado about nothing"!

  • Walter Nowak

    01/08/2018 03:08 PM

    What a slimeball this guy Wolff is.It is absolutely appalling to see MSNBC & CNN drool over this book. The relative silence of fellow GOPers is deafening. I was born when FDR was President and the only Presidents that have lived up to their word are Reagan and Trump. The rest were basically Howdy Doody's.

  • teresa

    01/08/2018 03:08 PM

    Wolff is nothing but trash and anyone with halve a brain knows it. My problem is why hasnt Trump locked up these people like Rosie ODonnell, Wolfe, all these ungreatful violent people. I wish he would shut george soros and his sons down and the clintons, obamas. I am sorry but the clintons and obamas aka barry soetoro,illegal muslim communist- they all need to be locked up now, not a year later. You know they sabotage4d Trumps tower and wanted it to burn to blame him if people died. I am sick of this lying bunch of evil satanists. Trump needs to do what Obama did and bring his CIA to tell people to stop or else like Obama did. We want our tax paying dollars back from illegal Obama to

  • Patricia A. McMahon

    01/08/2018 01:55 PM

    Thank you for that wonderful 'positive' reflection on the 'author' :( We can yell at the top of our lungs that this guy is a lying jerk. It'll be like water running off of a duck's back. The positive use of his lack of authenticity and judgement pokes fun at him. Now we can all go "back to our regularly scheduled
    program" and ignore the guy.

  • CAROLYN S STONE

    01/08/2018 01:26 PM

    Don't we have laws in our country against libel and slander? And if something is written, acknowledging it may or may not be true, isn't that called "fiction"? And shouldn't it have been published as such? I don't know who the publisher is but this should be the last book they ever publish.

  • Kevin Cook

    01/08/2018 01:19 PM

    Wolff a Typical Liberal

  • John Clark

    01/08/2018 01:17 PM

    Make him be held accountable and pay the legal consequences for slander. But there is one way to deal with it. Boycott this book. It is sadly unfortunate, however, that so many people are still buying it. All they are doing is putting money in his pocket. So I say, that the people who are buying the book are just as pathetic as he is.

  • Sharon Ferrer

    01/08/2018 12:09 PM

    Not even COSCO is in a hurry to clear up their toilet paper isles to eagerly have another crappy (no pun intended) failed book signing of the likes of Crooked Hillarie's. Her self psycho analysis blame fest, failed wanna be best seller book attempt is right up the alley with Wolff's hit job piece. Staying on that subject line... is the deep state Obama holdovers, the Washington DC elites & the media drive bys the ones that are not competent & are clearly psychologically damaged by Trump Derangement Syndrom. After a year of President Donald J Trump winning the election people like Wolff, Joy Reed, George Stephanopolous and Jake Tapper (just to name a few) are eagerly refusing to untie their self prescribed straight jackets, get out of their psyco ward media padded room echo chambers & report facts coherently to the American people. Wolff's trashy fiction rag is the security blanket they need to cling on to since they refuse to hop on the Trump Train.

  • Ann Bruce Pineda

    01/08/2018 11:53 AM

    I have no plan to read said book and do believe Trump haters are making a crooked fortune. I sincerely wish, however, that POTUS would express himself in a more dignified way and stick to the truth or just say he doesn't know. The Bible has a lot to say about lying and deceiving and none of it is good, as you know.

  • Cef Coles

    01/08/2018 11:35 AM

    Another attempt from the left to discredit and cast doubt on President Trump. Like President Trump stated, it's a shame the libel laws in the USA are weak. In my humble opinion, if they weren't, I'm sure the President would go after all those who are shaming his name.

  • Bruce Deming

    01/08/2018 11:28 AM

    Wow, what a way to make money. I think I'll start typing tonight. I'll open the curiosity by releasing excerpts of the 10 year affair between Mueller and Pelosi. Then the next day the hearsay confirmed DNA testing on Bill Clinton's half black love child, and the child's mother, Loretta Lynch. If I knew all I had to do to get a pile of money, was to compile a bunch of rumors, and stretch it with lies, into 150 pages, I'd have done it long ago. Maybe I wouldn't be near destitute now, from the rapid and very disabling onslaught my daughter suffered from M.S..

  • Glenn Hurla

    01/08/2018 11:17 AM

    I would hope and pray there is some way that President Trump can turn around after his presidency and sue everyone of these morons who attack and defame him with fiction and absence of malice. It truly hurts the intent of free speech with the way the fake news medias and Facebook controls things.

  • CDR Marcia Standifer, Ret., USPHS Commissioned Corps

    01/08/2018 10:50 AM

    This book needs to be re-classified as "FICTION," not Political Science or Politics - Heck, the author even admitted that he can't verify any of it -"Many of the accounts... are baldly untrue." Won't be reading it.

  • Gail Irons

    01/08/2018 10:49 AM

    It is so very sad that we, as a society, put up with this misinformation. A true example of "yellow journalism". Unfortunately, main-stream media will be all over this leading credence to their slanted views. Too bad someone that is mentioned in the book doesn't take the writer and publisher to court for slander.

  • Michael Sexton

    01/08/2018 10:44 AM

    Make me mad enough to publish my auto bio_ Lynyrd Skynyrd's "Freebird".

  • Jerry Jennings

    01/08/2018 10:41 AM

    Is Michael Wolfe Jewish?

  • ED SMITH

    01/08/2018 10:37 AM

    Anyone who would waste their time reading this after that declaration is either agenda driven or a fool.

  • Tammy Shipley

    01/08/2018 10:28 AM

    FICTION w/ a capital F-
    MAGA- support our POTUS:))

  • Jeanne Gossett Halsey

    01/08/2018 10:22 AM

    That’s not even yellow journalism — that’s tabloid-style trash. There’s not a Journalism teacher anywhere — not in elementary school, not in college — who would let a student get away with such sloppy production. Big fat red-letter FAIL!

  • Krystyna Krupa

    01/08/2018 10:17 AM

    Truth be told you almost have to feel sorry for Michael Wolff.
    Imagine living a life where every day you wake up feeling like nothing and go to bed feeling still the same. All day you parade in your tiny apartment dressed in a frilly pink teddy and 4" rhinestone covered heels. You have a beer for breakfast, shot of vodka for lunch and a bottle of whiskey for dinner. You try to call your mother but she had blocked your calls. Your sister has a restraining order against you after -you claimed mistakenly- you grabbed her breasts. She claims you abused her when she was a child - but nobody can prove it after all those years.
    In late evening Mr. Wolff entertains a burly neighbor with foot fetish. He doesn't much like it but money is money. If it's Wednesday there is a "pleasure visit" from Miss Muffin. She is over 80 but , as she says, There might be snow on the roof but there is still fire in the basement. Mr. Wolff doesn't find her attractive but at least she doesn't complain about his erectile dysfunction. And she always leaves a nice tip and a baggy of weed.
    Until his ED stopped responding to Viagra, Mr. Wolff was well known among the street walkers. At that time he also still could get some writing gigs so he had the money. And he learned that even the oldest and ugliest hooker won't share her talents for free.
    So now poor Michael sleeps alone, holding his old teddy bear. Isn't he a pitiful creature? Don't you feel at least a little sorry for him?

    I would like to add that since what I have written here about Mr. Michael Wolff can not be verified I will leave it to the reader to come to his/her own conclusion.

  • Mark Zimmerman

    01/08/2018 10:12 AM

    What has happened to the liable and slander laws in this country?? I don't care if the damaging lies are against our Commander-in-Chief or not, lies are lies and slander is slander and this nimrod should be held liable for his false and harmful attacks on our president!!!!!

  • Forrest Farmer

    01/08/2018 10:04 AM

    I find it amazing some people have the time and extra money to purchase and read such a thing. I don't. As for the President for real, I have noticed that he does and says things for a reason. You don't see the end results until 4-6 months later but, I noticed he is right more than he is wrong. I hope is right with Rocketman.

  • Fran Bennett

    01/08/2018 10:04 AM

    There are so many people I once had respect for who are blind to the truth. They go through life with the wool pulled over their eyes because they are voting the party their parents voted for. It is easier and quicker than opening their eyes to the corruption in the Democratic party. A thinking person would have had their eyes opened years ago, instead of winking at the morals and low standards of the leaders in the Democratic party.

  • Sue Collins

    01/08/2018 10:03 AM

    Garbage!!

  • Ken Lawyer

    01/08/2018 09:59 AM

    Mr. Huckabee,
    As always, thank you for your insightful information about the book "Fire and Fury." When I was in school (many years ago) somewhere in my memory was an English teacher telling me about liability issues that may arise in my writing a story of non-fiction. She told me I needed to check the facts and to be accurate whenever I was sharing information about my topic. It appears that if one is writing about a politician it doesn't need to be accurate. All you need is an opinion and you need to share it with as many people you can that agree with you. Don't worry about being sued because most people now-a-days are being tried in the court of public opinion and you just need to focus on those comments that agree with you. I truly hope Mr. Trump assigns his lawyers to after this author who is the proverbial "Wolff in "cheap" clothing!"

  • Jackie Cain

    01/08/2018 09:32 AM

    I just wonder who it was that let this Mr. Wolfe out of the funny farm long enough to write this book?

  • Carbine Williams

    01/08/2018 09:30 AM

    After seeing this cretin on MTP yesterday morning it was strongly apparent that this treatise was only good for cat box liner,or extra TP out in the outhouse

  • William Coolidge

    01/08/2018 09:26 AM

    This guy is the "Michael Moore" of (alleged) journalism!! ):

  • Betty Koster

    01/08/2018 08:35 AM

    I would never read this book. The one that everyone should read is "God and Donald Trump".

  • Catherine R Grassi

    01/07/2018 09:44 AM

    I always wanted to be a writer, so I majored in journalism when I was in college. I was taught back then that facts and balanced reporting mattered. My career is theater costuming, can you guess why? I still want to write a bestseller, but I think I'll market my fiction as just that, fiction.

  • Elaine kuebler

    01/06/2018 03:35 PM

    Just pathetic he and his book are!! So interesting that the left holds so many others, especially Trump, to standards that they don't use to measure themselves with. Just more of the same from the lunatic left! Thanks for always speaking the truth Mike!

Mike Huckabee

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