New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo will earn some $5.1 million in total proceeds from his book, American Crisis: Leadership Lessons From the COVID-19 Pandemic, according to financial information obtained prior to its public release by The New York Times. The figure includes the $3.12 million Cuomo earned in 2020 from the memoir, plus an additional $2 million to be paid out over the next two years. Cuomo spokesman Richard Azzopardi said in a statement that Cuomo netted $1,537,508 from the book last year, and donated a third of it to the United Way of New York State. The remainder went into a trust to be split equally between Cuomo’s three daughters, Azzopardi stated. The book has sold only 50,000 copies to date—not enough for Crown, its publisher, to recoup its costs, reported the Times. Cuomo has come under fire for allegedly using state resources to work on the book, an accusation he has strongly denied.
In March, Crown called off its planned promotion for the book, as well as any future printing of a paperback edition, after the Cuomo administration was accused of modifying a NYS Health Department report to conceal the actual number of COVID-related deaths that had occurred in New York nursing homes.