Donald Trump’s first mega book, “The Art of the Deal,” is still flying off the shelves.
The big winner is Random House — nearly 30 years after the tome was first published.
Just this year, through Feb. 26, the 372-page book has sold 19,000 copies and sits at No. 125 on its list of nonfiction best-sellers for the year, according to Nielsen BookScan.
BookScan is estimated to track about 80 percent of sales, so the real total is likely higher.
The book actually originated because S.I. Newhouse Jr., whose Advance Publications owned Random House at the time, was jealous of the success of “Iacocca,” the Lee Iacocca autobiography from Bantam.
Newhouse and Alberto Vitale, who was running Random’s Ballantine imprint, arranged a meeting with Trump and showed him a mocked-up cover of “Deal.”
Trump jumped at the idea. Tony Schwartz was hired as a ghostwriter, and the book, when published in late 1987, spent 51 weeks on the best-seller list.
The e-book version of “Deal” on Kindle was ranked No. 1 in its category as of March 3.



