Eric Bolling’s television career is on hold right now as he awaits the results of a Fox News investigation into allegations, published on Aug. 4 by HuffPost, that Bolling “sent an unsolicited photo of male genitalia via text message to at least two colleagues at Fox Business and one colleague at Fox News.”
The timing of his suspension was particularly troubling for Bolling considering that he had released a new book a little over a month earlier, on June 27. The book, Bolling’s second, is called The Swamp: Washington’s Murky Pool of Corruption and Cronyism and How Trump Can Drain It.
And, since his suspension from Fox News was announced on Aug. 5, sales of the book have suffered. Some 3,700 copies of the book were sold the week of Aug. 6, but that number dipped to 2,621 copies the following week and only 1,269 copies for the week ending Aug. 20. So far, a total of 62,831 copies of the book have been sold, according to NPD BookScan data provided to The Hollywood Reporter.
The book spent five consecutive weeks on the New York Times best-seller list, but dropped off after the week ending Aug. 13 and did not appear on the Aug. 20 list.
St. Martin’s Press, Bolling’s publisher, did not release a statement following Bolling’s suspension and has not responded to repeated THR requests for comment about whether the publisher stands behind Bolling and the book.
Bolling’s book got off to a strong start, moving more than 20,000 copies in its first week on the shelves. The book got a big marketing push when none other than President Trump retweeted a tweet from Bolling promoting the book. As he recounted in a July 29 book signing and discussion at the Ronald Reagan Library in California, Bolling appeared on the morning show Fox & Friends to discuss the book on the day of the release. The president’s son, Eric Trump, appeared right after him, suggesting that perhaps the message was conveyed. (The book also got an assist from Matt Drudge’s The Drudge Report.)
The book, which Bolling said was No. 2 on the Amazon best-sellers list after Trump’s tweet, now sits in 6,073rd place, though it’s relatively strong within the politics and social sciences sub-categories.
Bolling, during the July 29 discussion, bragged about the book’s early success. “It’s been a great run,” he told the crowd. His suspension from the network was announced exactly one week later.
Coincidentally, during the same discussion, Bolling was asked by an audience member about Charles Payne, a Fox Business host who had been suspended earlier in the month after he was accused of sexual harassment.
“It’s a rocky time right now in the industry,” Bolling said in response. “Fox has a lot of eyes on it, and everyone’s trying to say, ‘This is going on.’ So, they have to be very careful. Charles isn’t fired. The way I understand it, Charles is on a leave until they figure out what’s going on. What some of the accusations were, and what not. So, I don’t know if that’s a final chapter for Charles at Fox. I don’t know that either.” He then changed the subject.
Most recently, Bolling sued Yashar Ali, the author of the story that led to his suspension.
