President Donald Trump's legal threat aimed at 'Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House' appears to have the effect of making the book an early 2018 hot-selling title.

On its first day of release, bookstores in major cities like Washington DC, New York, and Los Angeles reported selling out of the initial order, and other shops in places like Oxford, Mississippi, and Shaker Heights, Ohio, also said that buyers quickly snatched up copies of their first batch.

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Amazon already has the title on back order, with a ship date of two to four weeks.

The book by Michael Wolff portrays Trump as unprepared and unfit for the demands of the presidency and a White House in chaos in its initial six months.

Trump has said that the book is full of lies, misrepresentations and sources that don't exist.

The author of the book insists he had spoken with the president, contradicting Trump's assertion that he had never talked to the writer for the book and had authorised "Zero access" to the White House.