Selling Trump: A Profitable Post-Presidency Like No Other

The book’s sales are scarcely spectacular: The tell-all from his niece, Mary Trump, had sold 950,000 copies by the day it went on sale. But Mr. Trump’s picture book is priced far higher. Signed copies went for $229.99 and quickly sold out.

Sergio Gor, a co-founder of Winning Team Publishing with Donald Trump Jr., called the book a success and said he was “in discussions” to acquire the rights to the former president’s next one.

Winning Team Publishing announced its second author this week: Charlie Kirk, the leader of Turning Point USA, a conservative youth group that holds its winter gala at Mar-a-Lago. Tax records for the most recent year available show the group spent nearly $280,000 there on food and beverages.

Mr. Trump’s for-profit store, meanwhile, has added a “MAGA collection,” and sells items like a $95 Mar-a-Lago Christmas ornament, that it is marketing to supporters of Mr. Trump’s 2020 campaign through email lists rented from the Trump political operation and maintained by Brad Parscale, Mr. Trump’s former campaign manager.

Donald Trump Jr., for his part, operates another online store, selling proudly provocative clothes, like shirts that say, “Guns Don’t Kill People / Alec Baldwin Kills People” — a reference to the actor’s movie-set shooting last year. After the acquittal of Kyle Rittenhouse, the teen who shot and killed two people during the unrest in Kenosha, Wis., the store briefly promoted a new sweatshirt: “In a World Full of Alecs, Be a Kyle.”

Collectibles and ‘high tea’

Mrs. Trump, too, has found ways to monetize her ties to Mr. Trump, including through a series of online sales. In January, she put up for auction a digital portrait of her by a French artist, a print of the portrait and a white hat she once wore at the White House while meeting the president of France.

Her plan to maximize the sales price by accepting payments only in cryptocurrency appears to have backfired, however: The crash in cryptocurrency prices in January reduced the planned opening-bid price of $250,000 to about $170,000 on the final day of the auction.