It may not be true after all that all publicity is good publicity. Take Madonna. Her hellacious month of bad press concerning the adoption, legal or otherwise, of a Malawian child has turned out to be a buzz kill for book sales. "The English Roses: Too Good to Be True" has been an out-and-out bust so far. Madonna’s latest children’s book, released on Oct. 24, has sold just 9,000 copies, according to Nielsen Bookscan. By contrast, the first "English Roses" book has sold 350,000 copies since its release in 1993. But most of those were sold soon after publication. It’s not like Madonna didn’t do anything for this new book. She did interviews with Oprah, Regis, "Dateline," etc. But by the time she did them, the adoption scandal was in full force. Despite some positive feedback, Madonna has mostly been criticized for prying a 1-year-old away from his father. Rarely in pop culture history has a plan so exploded in a celebrity’s face. It probably didn’t help that this column pointed out that Madonna’s children’s books bear a warning that all proceeds go to Philip Berg’s Kabbalah organization. Of course, the irony there is that the proceeds, according to publisher Callaway Editions, go to Madonna, and then she writes the check to Kabbalah. “We have no idea what she does with the money,” says a Callaway source.
Fox411
Would you buy a book by Madonna for your child?
