John Fetterman’s New Book BOMBS, Sells Zero Copies in His Hometown’s Barnes & Noble on Launch Day

Photo by Aaron Schwartz/Sipa USA via AP Images

Sen. John Fetterman’s (D-PA) new memoir Unfettered sold zero copies in his own hometown’s Barnes & Noble store the first few days after launch, according to a review of the book.

Despite Fetterman and his ghostwriter reportedly receiving more than a million dollars in advance money from publisher Crown, Unfettered has so far sold poorly, both online and in retail stores.

“The day after Fetterman’s book dropped, I called a handful of Barnes and Nobles [sic] and independent bookstores in Pennsylvania,” reported Defector Media’s Alex Shultz. “The Barnes and Noble in York—where Fetterman was born and raised—had sold zero copies. The Barnes and Noble in Philadelphia had sold two copies.”

Shultz added that two independent stores told him they were not stocking the book, while another store revealed that interest in Unfettered had been “lukewarm.”

“In fairness, things can of course change. But the early signs are not good,” he continued. “A few days after Unfettered came out, it was ranked No. 82,145 among all books on Amazon. As of Monday, Nov. 17 (not quite a week since the book’s release), it’s No. 15,713.”

While Unfettered is currently listed as the number one bestselling Amazon book under the category “United States Local Government,” it is only narrowly beating Pete Buttigieg’s memoir Shortest Way Home, which came out all the way back in 2019.

“There is no audience for Unfettered, and I do not think Crown will get its money’s worth on this memoir,” wrote Shultz, who described the book as a “boring,” predictable memoir full of “what the country already knows,” along with reminiscences about the time the senator peed his pants as a child and was told he was too tall to go trick-or-treating.

In a social media post update on Thursday, Shultz reported that Fetterman’s book had sold less than 2,600 copies in its first week altogether.

“That ranks No. 19 in the adult autobiographies category, two spots behind Chris Matthews’ RFK hagiography. Not what you want, numbers-wise,” he concluded.