Hillary Clinton beats Donald Trump — on the bestseller list

Who has the best-selling books?
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Donald Trump is losing in at least one competition that might make him a little sore — the bestseller list. Since 2001, Ben Carson's books have beat out works authored by current and former 2016 presidential candidates, reaching an enormous total of 1,669,300 sales. Hillary Clinton's books, including her 2014 memoir Hard Choices, have also done impressively, reaching a total of 517,500 sales.

However, Trump's books — including his favorite, Trump: Art of the Deal — have only sold 374,500 copies by comparison.

To be fair, the numbers aren't entirely precise. Nielsen, who records the sales, only looks back as far as 2001: Art of the Deal, however, came out in 1987, and Carson's Gifted Hands was released in 1990. Nielsen also doesn't look at e-book sales, and only accounts for about 85 percent of print sales, The New York Times reports.

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But if you consider the broad strokes, Carson is the runaway winner in this field at least. Marco Rubio, on the other hand, might not have a plan B in writing if the whole White House thing doesn't work out: He has sold only 13,200 copies of American Dreams: Restoring Economic Opportunity for Everyone since it was released in January 2015.

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Jeva Lange

Jeva Lange was the executive editor at TheWeek.com. She formerly served as The Week's deputy editor and culture critic. She is also a contributor to Screen Slate, and her writing has appeared in The New York Daily News, The Awl, Vice, and Gothamist, among other publications. Jeva lives in New York City. Follow her on Twitter.