As congressional rules crack down on the receipt of extravagant gifts and honoraria, sitting U.S. Senators and Representatives are forced to embrace creative, transparent money-making solutions to supplement their relatively modest pay. Though accepting $1 million for a series of motivational speeches is a colossal faux pas, signing for that same amount as an advance falls in line with every last sub-clause of the regulations.

Barack, for example, received $1.9 million from Random House in 2005 to write two non-fiction books and a children's tale, and Hillary grabbed more than $350,000 (over twice her measly Senate salary of $165,200) in royalties for Living History. Even Bill Richardson raked in more than $15,000 last year for his 2005 autobiography Between Worlds.

In this inaugural installment, Radar tracks the author-candidates' book rankings in descending order according to their Amazon rank (the lower number the better their sales). Each is then categorized by similar-selling authors (in this case, best to worst): J.K. Rowling, Jackie Collins, Tom Clancy, Tinkerbell (Paris's Chihuahua), and Ted Kaczynski (the Unabomber).

[Full rankings after the jump!]

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