For each of the past six years, Bill O’Reilly has published a book in his historical ‘Killing…” series. The books by the former Fox News host always rose to the top of the nonfiction best-seller list, but this year could be the exception, reports The New York Times. If so, that would end O’Reilly’s run as “the author of one of the industry’s most popular and lucrative nonfiction franchises.”
This year’s book is called Killing England: The Brutal Struggle for American Independence. The book, as usual, is co-written with Martin Dugard, and this time focuses on the Revolutionary War. Though it is being released Tuesday, so far, the book has barely made it on Amazon’s print best-seller list, the Times reports, with a ranking of 90.
Meanwhile, the e-book version of Killing England ranks 864th on Amazon’s Kindle best-seller list. Based on these numbers, it appears unlikely O’Reilly’s latest book will become an instant No. 1 best-seller in its first week.
There could be multiple reasons for the lackluster preorder sales, including the fact that the Times disclosed this spring that O’Reilly had spent millions of dollars settling claims by five women who accused him of sexual harassment or verbal abuse. The ensuing scandal ultimately cost him his job at Fox News. In previous years, his pundit platform of four million nightly viewers at the cable network had offered him a reliable customer base. This year, however, he lacks that, although O’Reilly does have more than two million followers on Twitter, where he has been promoting Killing England.
Previous books in his series were all instant No. 1 New York Times best sellers. Last year, Killing the Rising Sun sold more than 250,000 copies in the first week and went on to be the best-selling book of 2016, selling 1,104,389 copies.
O’Reilly’s publisher, Henry Holt, stood by him after he was fired. Barnes & Nobel is still selling the book, as is Amazon. But other publishing partners have backed out, including National Geographic, which canceled its planned adaptation of Killing Patton. Four of his previous Killing books had been adapted into documentaries by Nat Geo.
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