The Iraq Study Group Report is fast on its way to becoming a bestseller. It has already gone into a third printing with about 250,000 copies in print and the report has also been downloaded for free over 700,000 times.Like the "The 9-11 Commission Report", which was released two years ago and sold more than 1 million copies and received a National Book Award nomination, the Iraq report is a government document. Historically, government documents where printed, published and distributed by the government. It is only recently that these reports have started being published by mainstream publishers. Yes, each publisher...
The O. J. Book Toss
So let's follow the bouncing OJ book: New Book-Recalled Book-Scarce Book 1. Tremendous hype precedes the scheduled Nov. 30th release of "If I Did It" being published by Judith Regan's ReganBooks, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers both owned by head Fox Robert Murdoch. 2. Tremendous public outcry forces the publisher to cancel publication. 3. The books that did make it to market begin making their way to the used book, auction world (or the resale market as the USA today article calls it) with lucrative results. USA Today story on this here. Where will the book bounce next? Back in...
The Book Lives
There is alot of buzz in the blogosphere regarding Forbes magazine recent special report on Books. The first thing to note is that one of the worlds leading business magazines is devoting an entire special issue to books. This wouldn't happen unless there is still a large demand and a ton of money to be made. The report features numerous articles on the state of the book, including a Q & A with some literary heavyweights- The question: "To me, books are..." A couple of enticing and encouraging snippets: From Cory Doctorow's"Giving It Away". Doctorow is one of the blog...