?(Contrast this to the 3,000 copies my own 2009 book, Roadrunner, has sold)
Translation: "Please buy my book to save India from Hitler." He should probably have contrasted it with a more popular book on philosophy. Like something Ghandi wrote. Except then he couldn't plug his own product. I discuss all this and more in my new book, "Going Rogue." Contrast my zero copies of my supremely excellent book to Mein Kampf and you'll see how much of a problem it is. In fact, more people read Meing Kampf than my book, and that's why there are still Neo Nazis. The only kind of fascism you can expect from me is the repressive peace of mind my excellent prices and shipping times will deliver. The only "Kampf" you'll be getting from me and "Going Rogue" (my new book) is the "kampf"ert of the low low cost of just 19.99$ plus shipping and handling. Frankly, I'm surprised people think Hitler was a powerful orator, because clearly he was a ninny, unlike the narrator of my book (me) which is available now. Hitler got people to follow him because he lied and stuff. Sure his speeches are actually pretty well crafted and mirrored in modern politics (discussed in my book) but its way easier to just try and say he was terrible in every way because he's a bad guy. Complex views of history and leaders are hard and take work. I talk about work in my own book. Available now. Also my wife teaches children who like Hitler. See how bad it is? Children in a single class are a good statistical sample. So are college elites. You see, colleges are just full of basically the representative sample of everyone, so we should assume all Indians love and would vote for Hitler. Also there's this guy here who was like an Indian Hitler. Pretty much all he did was hate Muslims and did nothing else. He also liked Hitler. I don't like this guy (he didn't buy my book) and so he's clearly literally Hitler.
While I agree such a comparison looks a bit off, it might also be that he just tries to give an idea of magnitude. When I hear on TV that such singer sold half or one million albums, it gives me no comparison ; when they say that a publisher is trying to get an oversea best-seller printed in 50 or 100 thousands, I have nowhere to relate either.
True, but also nobody cares about his book. This seems to be an article written for an American or western audience. A good writer would thus use a book or topic that Americans/Westerners would understand. We all understand Mein Kampf. We know who wrote it and that its not really hugely popular in the West. If he had picked a book about Ghandi, everyone in the West reading the article would understand the comparison, because we know Ghandi is famous pretty much everywhere. If Mein Kampf sold like...half as much as a pretty famous book either about or by Ghandi, we would all be like "oh hey, that IS a lot!" Instead he compared it to his book. I can't even find how many people in the U.S. bought his book. Apparently it was sort of terrible according to every review that wasn't on Amazon, so I dunno. I could see how it'd be a pretty terrible book judging by how the article was written. This was actually a super interesting topic that was made incredibly boring by a pretty mediocre writer.
I remember when I didn't think everything was a gigantic marketing scheme. Then you read about W&K and hit the weird realization that social media essentially functions as a means of cataloguing your interests to create cheap, personalized ad experiences. That life on the web has become a slow echo chamber of everything you already agree with is sent back to you. Everything else can be put on an ignore list. Not a giant conspiracy of course. Its just smart business. If the author was smart we wouldn't have even noticed. But he didn't and wasn't.