The Selling of the President 1968 is a non-fiction book written by American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 author

Author

An author is broadly defined as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created. Narrowly defined, an author is the originator of any written work.-Legal significance:...

 Joe McGinniss

Joe McGinniss

Joe McGinniss is an American author of nonfiction and novels. He first came to prominence with the best-selling The Selling of the President, 1968 which described the marketing of then-presidential candidate Richard Nixon, and has authored 11 works since that time...

 and published by Trident Press in October, 1969.

The book describes the marketing of Richard Nixon

Richard Nixon

Richard Milhous Nixon was the 37th President of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. The only president to resign the office, Nixon had previously served as a US representative and senator from California and as the 36th Vice President of the United States from 1953 to 1961 under...

 during the 1968 presidential campaign

United States presidential election, 1968

The United States presidential election of 1968 was the 46th quadrennial United States presidential election. Coming four years after Democrat Lyndon B. Johnson won in a historic landslide, it saw Johnson forced out of the race and Republican Richard Nixon elected...

. It has been described as "a classic of political journalism" and a "classic of campaign reporting that first introduced many readers to the stage-managed world of political theater." It was reprinted in 1988 under the title The Selling of the President.

McGinniss became an overnight success when the book, his first, landed on The New York Times

The New York Times

The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...

 bestseller list. He was 26 years old, making him the youngest living writer with that achievement. The book was on the New York Times non-fiction bestseller list for 31 weeks from October 1969 to May 1970.

The idea for the book came to McGinniss almost serendipitously:

[He] stumbled across his book’s topic while taking a train to New York. A fellow commuter had just landed the Hubert Humphrey

Hubert Humphrey

Hubert Horatio Humphrey, Jr. , served under President Lyndon B. Johnson as the 38th Vice President of the United States. Humphrey twice served as a United States Senator from Minnesota, and served as Democratic Majority Whip. He was a founder of the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party and...

 account and was boasting that 'in six weeks we’ll have him looking better than Abraham Lincoln

Abraham Lincoln

Abraham Lincoln was the 16th President of the United States, serving from March 1861 until his assassination in April 1865. He successfully led his country through a great constitutional, military and moral crisis – the American Civil War – preserving the Union, while ending slavery, and...

.' McGinniss tried to get access to Humphrey’s campaign first, but they turned him down. So he called up Nixon’s, and they said yes.".

The book was very well received by both critics and the public. It "spent more than six months on best-sellers lists, and McGinniss sold a lot of those books through television, appearing on the titular shows of Merv Griffin

Merv Griffin

Mervyn Edward "Merv" Griffin, Jr. was an American television host, musician, actor, and media mogul. He began his career as a radio and big band singer who went on to appear in movies and on Broadway. From 1965 to 1986 Griffin hosted his own talk show, The Merv Griffin Show on Group W Broadcasting...

, David Frost

David Frost

Sir David Frost is a British broadcaster.David Frost may also refer to:*David Frost , South African golfer*David Frost , classical record producer*David Frost *Dave Frost, baseball pitcher...

 and Dick Cavett

Dick Cavett

Richard Alva "Dick" Cavett is a former American television talk show host known for his conversational style and in-depth discussion of issues...

, among others." Conservative writer William F. Buckley "assumed McGinniss had relied on 'an elaborate deception which has brought joy and hope to the Nixon-haters.' But even Buckley liked the book."

Editions

The Selling of the President 1968, Oct. 1969, New York:Trident Press (Simon & Schuster). 253pp. ISBN 0-6712-7043-5

The Selling of the President 1968, Oct. 1970, PocketBooks (Simon & Schuster). SBN 671-78036-0, Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 77-92157

The Selling of the President, 1988 reprint, with new introduction by author, New York:Penguin Books. 272pp. ISBN 0-1401-1240-5