7.4 /10 1 Votes
Country United States Genre Business Publication date November 1, 1987 Page count 372 | 3.7/5 Goodreads Language English Publisher Random House Originally published 12 November 1987 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Media type Print (hardcover and paperback) Adaptations Donald Trump's The Art of the Deal: The Movie (2016) Similar Donald Trump books, Business books | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Trump: The Art of the Deal is a 1987 book credited to businessman and current President of the United States Donald Trump and journalist Tony Schwartz. Part memoir and part business-advice book, it reached number 1 on The New York Times Best Seller list, stayed there for 13 weeks, and altogether held a position on the list for 48 weeks. It was the first book published by Trump and helped to make him a "household name".
Contents
The book received additional attention during Trump's 2016 campaign for the presidency of the United States. He cited it as one of his proudest accomplishments and his second-favorite book after the Bible. Schwartz expressed regrets about his involvement and he and the book's publisher, Howard Kaminsky, asserted that Trump had played no role in the actual writing of the book. Trump has given conflicting accounts on the question of authorship.
Synopsis
The book tells about Trump's childhood in Jamaica Estates, Queens. It then describes his early work in Brooklyn prior to moving to Manhattan, whereupon he engaged in building The Trump Organization. It then describes his actions and thoughts in developing the Grand Hyatt Hotel and Trump Tower, in renovating Wollman Rink, and regarding various other projects.
The book also contains an 11-step formula for business success, inspired by Norman Vincent Peale's The Power of Positive Thinking. Trump's steps are:
- Think big
- Protect the downside and the upside will take care of itself
- Maximize your options
- Know your market
- Use your leverage
- Enhance your location
- Get the word out
- Fight back
- Deliver the goods
- Contain the costs
- Have fun
Development
Trump was persuaded to produce the book by Condé Nast owner Si Newhouse after the May 1984 issue of Newhouse's magazine GQ – with Trump appearing on the cover – sold well. Schwartz was hired to work on the book, and began working with Trump in late 1985. He interviewed Trump and – with permission from him – listened in on his phone calls.
According to Schwartz in July 2016, Trump wrote none of the book, choosing only to remove a few critical mentions of business colleagues at the end of the process. Trump responded with conflicting stories, saying "I had a lot of choice of who to have write the book, and I chose [Schwartz]", but then said "[Schwartz] didn't write the book. I wrote the book." Former Random House head Howard Kaminsky, the book's original publisher, said "Trump didn’t write a postcard for us!" The book was published in November 1987 by Random House, with the authorship given as "Donald Trump with Tony Schwartz".
Schwartz was the subject of a July 2016 article in The New Yorker in which Schwartz describes Donald Trump unfavorably and relates how he came to regret writing The Art of the Deal. He also stated that if it were to be written today it would be very different and titled The Sociopath. Schwartz repeated his self-criticism on Good Morning America, saying he had "put lipstick on a pig". In response to these claims, Trump's attorneys have demanded that Schwartz cede all his royalties from the book to Trump.
Publication
The Art of the Deal was published in November 1987 by Random House. A promotional campaign was undertaken in conjunction with the release of the book. This included Trump holding a release party at Trump Tower that was hosted by Jackie Mason and featured a celebrity-filled guest list. There were a series of appearances by him on television talk shows. Trump also appeared on a number of magazine covers as part of publicity for the book.
Excerpts from the book were published in New York magazine. The book has been translated into over a dozen different languages.
Reception and legacy
At the time of publication, Publishers Weekly called it a "boastful, boyishly disarming, thoroughly engaging personal history". People magazine gave it a mixed review.
Three years later, journalist John Tierney noted Trump "appears to have ignored some of his own advice" in the book due to "well-publicized problems with his banks." Trump's self-promotion, best-selling book and media celebrity status led one commentator in 2006 to call him "a poster-child for the 'greed is good' 1980s". (The phrase "Greed is good" was from the movie Wall Street which was released a month after The Art of the Deal.)
Jim Geraghty in the National Review said in 2015 that the book showed "a much softer, warmer, and probably happier figure than the man dominating the airwaves today."
John Paul Rollert, an ethicist writing about the book in The Atlantic in 2016, says Trump sees capitalism not as an economic system but a morality play.
The book coined the phrase "truthful hyperbole" describing "an innocent form of exaggeration—and... a very effective form of promotion". Schwartz said Trump loved that phrase. In January 2017, the phrase was noted for its similarity to the phrase "alternative facts" coined by Counselor to the President Kellyanne Conway when she defended White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer's false statements about the attendance at Trump's inauguration as President of the United States.
Royalties
Trump and Schwartz had an agreement to split royalties from the book on a 50–50 basis.
In 1988, Trump set up the Donald J. Trump Foundation to give away royalties from the book's sales, promising four or five million dollars "To the homeless, to Vietnam veterans, for AIDS, multiple sclerosis" in Trump's words. According to a Washington Post investigation those donations largely did not happen: the paper said "he gave less to those causes than he did to his older daughter's ballet school." The Washington Post asked Trump's campaign if Trump had donated the $55,000 Trump earned in the first six months of 2016 to charity, as he promised in the 1980s, and it did not respond.
By 2016, Schwartz said he had received some $1.6 million in royalty payments. In October of that year, Schwartz said the royalties he was still receiving for the book "suddenly became, for me, blood money. I didn't want to be anywhere near it. It just feels wrong." As a result, Schwartz said he would be donating the prior 6-months of royalties worth $55,000 to the National Immigration Law Center which advocates for more undocumented immigrants to remain in the USA legally. Schwartz had earlier donated royalties he received in the second half of 2015, worth $25,000, to a number of charities including the National Immigration Forum. Schwartz said he wanted to help the people Trump was attacking.
Book sales
Precise figures for the number of copies sold of Art of the Deal are not available because its publication preceded the Nielsen BookScan era. It had a first printing of 150,000 copies. Several magazine and book accounts state that it sold over 1 million hardcover copies or 1 million copies. A 2016 CBS News investigation reported that an unnamed source familiar with the book's sales placed the figure at 1.1 million copies sold.
Trump asserted in his 2016 presidential run that Art of the Deal is "the No. 1 selling business book of all time." In detailed analysis by Linda Qiu in the Tampa Bay Times, other business books were found to have sold many more copies than Art of the Deal. Qiu noted it was impossible to find exact sales figures, but gave a range of possibilities based on known claims and facts. Compared to six other famous business books, Art of the Deal ranked in fifth place according to her analysis; the first place book, How to Win Friends and Influence People, outsold it by a factor of 15 times.