POLITICS is a numbers game and so is publishing.
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So it is with interest that Manning Valley Books is watching the numbers of copies of 'The Independent Member for Lyne' the memoir of Rob Oakeshott being sold at its Taree store.
Mr Oakeshott launched the book in Port Macquarie on May 27 and it came to our local bookshop a few days later.
Owner Nicky Stevens said staff quickly sold the 15 in-store copies and were now awaiting arrival of a second shipment from publisher, Allen and Unwin.
"If we sell 10 copies of a book in a week, then by our measure of success it is a best seller," Nicky said.
"The scale of success is obviously different nationally, I think it may be around 5000 copies.
"We have had a few people make derogatory comments about the book clearly they weren't fans," she added.
According to publisher, Allen and Unwin, the book is "Rob Oakeshott's honest and real story of life in Australian politics. From his apprenticeship in the NSW parliament to the last days of the Gillard government.
"When the results of the 2010 federal election became known, no party had a majority in the House of Representatives it was the first hung parliament for 40 years. So, both the Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, and the Leader of the Opposition, Tony Abbott, set about wooing the Independents Tony Windsor, Rob Oakeshott, Bob Katter and Andrew Wilkie and Adam Bandt of the Greens. In the end, Julia Gillard stitched together an agreement to form government. When it was announced, famously there was talk of a 'kinder, gentler polity'. That lasted for about one day.
"Rob Oakeshott, in this very candid and compelling memoir, relates the events leading up to this agreement and what happened thereafter when he and Windsor, in particular, proved themselves to be stauncher supporters of Julia Gillard than many of her party colleagues. He remembers moments of celebration and incidents of perfidy. But above all, we get to meet close up and personal the man who played such an important role in the forty-third parliament."