Ron DeSantis’s Awful Memoir Made Him a Millionaire

Florida governor and 2024 Republican presidential candidate Ron DeSantis has reason to celebrate as sales of his recent memoir, The Courage to Be Free, have officially made him a millionaire. The former federal prosecutor’s net worth increased from about $319,000 in 2021 to nearly $1.2 million the following year, according to a financial disclosure filed Friday with the Florida Commission on Ethics.

The memoir—a prelude to DeSantis’s presidential run—sold nearly 100,000 copies in its first week, launching it to the top of The New York Times bestseller list despite being panned by critics. For comparison, DeSantis himself actually had to pay a small, Florida-based press to publish his first book in 2011, which sold just over 100 copies through July 2022, Insider reported.

But the windfall presents a potential image problem for the candidate, who has touted his blue-collar roots throughout his campaign. In one widely mocked passage from the memoir, DeSantis wrote that he “was geographically raised in Tampa Bay, but culturally my upbringing reflected the working-class communities in western Pennsylvania and northeast Ohio — from weekly church attendance to the expectation that one would earn his keep.”

 Though DeSantis appears to have come by his sales honestly, many conservative bestsellers have needed a bit of a helping hand. The Washington Post reported in 2021 that four Republican Party-affiliated organizations “collectively spent more than $1 million during the past election cycle mass-purchasing books written by GOP candidates, elected officials and personalities,” minting multiple new bestsellers. Earlier this year, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s memoir was propelled onto the New York Times bestseller list thanks to a $42,000 bulk buy from a PAC promoting a potential presidential run. And in November 2022, a PAC supporting former Vice President Mike Pence shelled out $91,000 for his memoir.

When DeSantis’s book came out, multiple outlets reported that its sales outpaced comparable books from Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and DeSantis’s chief Republican rival, Donald Trump. The news sent Trump into a fit of apoplexy. In a post on Truth Social, Trump accused DeSantis of orchestrating bulk buys to inflate sales, though there’s no hard evidence of that. He ended the post with a plug for his own forthcoming book, Letters to Trump, a collection of his private exchanges with celebrities. “The so-called Stars corresponded with me, you’ll love it!” he wrote.

As Trump continues to clobber DeSantis in presidential polls, at least the Florida Governor has this one small victory to celebrate.