Kenmore publisher strikes gold with Palin bio

A local publisher is scrambling to fill orders for about 40,000 copies of the only biography of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, which until Friday morning had sold just 8,000 copies.

"What a stroke of luck," said Kent Sturgis, publisher and co-owner of Epicenter Press in Kenmore.

He had 3,000 copies of the hardback version left on Friday morning, when Republican presidential candidate John McCain announced Palin as his running mate.

"We decided right off the bat that we better go ahead and do a paperback version," he said. "We were producing copies of this paperback about 14 hours after the announcement, and they'll all be shipped on Tuesday."

The book had climbed to No. 7 on Amazon.com's best-selling-books list by Saturday evening. The list is updated hourly.

Called "Sarah: How a Hockey Mom Turned Alaska's Political Establishment Upside Down," the biography was Sturgis' idea. He recruited Alaska author Kaylene Johnson to write the 160-page book, which was released in April.

Sturgis met Palin at a Fairbanks fundraiser in 2006, and "boy, she's really interesting," he said. "No matter what you think about her politics, she's an interesting and an unusual politician."

Sturgis has been a Seattle bureau chief of The Associated Press, managing editor of the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner and a copy editor at The Seattle Times.

In 21 years at Epicenter, he has published about 100 titles and specializes in nonfiction about Alaska.

Epicenter's only other best-seller was "Two Old Women" by Velma Wallis, which has sold nearly 2 million books.

Melissa Allison: 206-464-3312 or mallison@seattletimes.com