There’s a brawl shaping up between two books about New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo. The New York Times says sales of the governor’s memoir, “American Crisis: Leadership Lessons from the COVID-19 Pandemic,” have evaporated. In October, Crown reportedly printed about 450,000 copies of “American Crisis,” but by the end of February it had sold only about 46,000. With the governor battered by accusations of sexual harassment and claims that he suppressed data on nursing home deaths related to covid-19, few readers seem eager to hear Cuomo brag about his administrative prowess. Crown has “paused” marketing for “American Crisis” and has no plans for a paperback edition.

The indie publisher OR Books smells blood in the water. It’s rushing to release an exposé called “The Prince: Andrew Cuomo, Coronavirus, and the Fall of New York,” by journalist Ross Barkan. The marketing campaign places Cuomo’s memoir right beside Barkan’s book: “Not Available in Paperback” vs. “Soon Available in Paperback.”

OR publisher Colin Robinson tells me, “No response from Cuomo yet, but we will certainly be sending a copy to him.” This is just the kind of situation Robinson’s nimble firm is designed to exploit. OR promotes its books heavily online, sells directly to readers and prints on demand. The publisher has already taken “lots of pre-orders” and plans to get copies out the door in a few weeks. “It’s not just that we’re quick,” Robinson says. “We can also take chances that larger, more staid houses would shy away from, especially when it comes to aiming fire at powerful figures like Andrew Cuomo.”

The Machiavellian cover of “The Prince” gives a good indication of Robinson’s wry sensibilities. He notes with a certain glee that OR’s first book back in 2009 was a reply to Sarah Palin’s memoir “Going Rogue” called “Going Rouge.” The cover caused such confusion that Fox accidentally showed OR’s parody instead of Palin’s memoir during a story about the former Alaskan governor. “Bliss,” Robinson sighs.

Read the newsletter here.

“The media puffed up Cuomo as a pandemic savior and anti-Trump. Now he’s accused of sexual harassment and concealing nursing home deaths.”

Read the article here.

“You can’t make three enemies a week for 10 years and hope to survive. People who were close to him are like, ‘Andrew Cuomo, who’s that?’”

Read the article here.

“The governor was anointed as the anti-Trump and happily, greedily played the part as facts were ignored, dismissed, even hidden. Mass death meant mass fame.”

Read the article here.

“He may not resign. But his era of dominance is over.”

Read the article here.

“[Andrew Cuomo’s] political oligarchy effectively ended when he faced reality and realized he could not have a political crony ‘investigate’ the charges that he sexually harassed two young staffers.

At least, that’s Ross Barkan’s take — and he’s had a string of on-point takes recently. Plus, he has a book coming out about Cuomo’s handling of the COVID-19 crisis that includes the governor’s initial February scandal over nursing home deaths.”

Read the article here.

As Ross Barkan wrote for CJR last March, Cuomo initially downplayed the threat of the virus and U-turned on a shelter-in-place order for New York City, yet he faced “relatively few” tough questions about his preparedness. “Why is New York City the next Northern Italy?” Barkan asked. “These are the kinds of questions that will take more than a PowerPoint slide to answer.”

Read the article here.