What happened: CNN host Jake Tapper persuaded (begged?) dozens of his liberal celebrity friends and journalist colleagues to publicly endorse his latest book, All the Demons Are Here: A Thriller, which came out this summer.
• The list of lib celebs who plugged Tapper's book includes Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Jimmy Kimmel, Jake Gyllenhaal, Seth Meyers, Paul Rudd, Adam Scott, Ben Stiller, Judd Apatow, Whoopi Goldberg, Conan O'Brien, Christian Slater, Elizabeth Banks, and "Weird Al" Yankovic, among others. Kimmel urged his 11.4 million followers to buy a copy "for yourself or to send a copy to Trump in jail."
• Practically all of Tapper's colleagues at CNN, at least the ones who appear regularly on television, posted their own endorsements of the book on social media. They were joined by several other journalists at rival networks, including former Clinton spokesman George Stephanopoulos.
What happened next: The book still flopped—sort of like the time all those celebrities endorsed Hillary Clinton in 2016 but no one cared. All the Demons Are Here has sold just 13,196 copies since its release on July 11, according to the Daily Beast.
Crucial context: That's not very good. For the sake of comparison, Fox News host Bret Baier's latest book, To Rescue the Constitution: George Washington and the Fragile American Experiment, sold more copies in just one week following its release last month.
• Tapper's book sales were dwarfed by those of his own daughter, Alice Paul Tapper, who published a children's book in 2019 when she was just 11 years old. Raise Your Hand, which was partly inspired by the author's time in the Girl Scouts, debuted at number two on the New York Times bestseller list for picture books.
• Promotional material for the elder Tapper's thriller described it as "an absolute page-turner" that "transports readers to the 1970s underground world of cults, celebrities, tabloid journalism, serial killers, disco, and UFOs."
What they're saying: Some readers disagreed with that assessment. Kirkus Reviews described All the Demons Are Here as "a quasi-mystery in search of authenticity."
• Publisher's Weekly complained that the author's "overwrought prose" served to exacerbate "some wildly improbable plot developments."
• "You are in my top 3 commentators on the wonderful network. I wanted to love it," wrote one Kindle customer in a two-star review on Amazon. "I stopped reading around the 60% mark. I tried to hang in there. But it was painful. So I doubt I'll read another. Sorry dude… I really really like you."
• Amazon customer "Family Nurse" wrote that she is also a fan of Tapper's work on CNN, which is why she "endured the slow beginning hoping that the story and characters in it would eventually interest me." Alas, it never did. She went on to wonder "if Jake had simply tired of writing his book and wanted to hurry to finish the project. Very disappointing."
• Amazon customer Dr. Gabriel I. Penagaricano was similarly unimpressed. "Jake Tapper is a fantastic anchor," he wrote in a one-star review. "Sadly, he [falls] far short as a writer. The story is too farfetched to be interesting."
Bottom line: CNN and everyone associated with the cable news network are failing big time.