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Showing posts with label New York Times. Show all posts
Showing posts with label New York Times. Show all posts

Thursday, February 17, 2011

Financial Reporting, Book Promotion--Or Both?


I saw something in yesterday's New York Times that I've never seen before. In a fascinating article by Diana B. Henriques, a financial correspondent for the Times, Bernard Madoff said, among other things, that some banks had to have been at least passively complicit in his Ponzi scheme.

But what really got my attention was the information—right there, in a paragraph all its own--that the piece, which was based on an in-prison interview and a series of e-mail messages, is part of the reporter's research for her book on the scandal. That's one thing. But the book's title, publisher and that it will come out this spring all were included. I was torn between feeling that this is somehow unseemly—there was a whiff of quid pro quo about it—and wishing that other worthy authors could be so lucky: free advance promotion on the front page of the NYT. Wow. The only thing missing was a link to Amazon for pre-ordering.

Thursday, November 11, 2010

E-Books Will Get Their Own List in the Times

The latest breakthrough for e-books: The New York Times says it will publish best-seller lists for fiction and non-fiction e-books beginning early next year.

The fact in the article that gave me pause: the Times already publishes fourteen different best-seller lists! I'd never bothered to count them and I was faintly amazed that the number was so high. With that many options, I guess I should feel mildly embarrassed when one of the books I work on fails to make any of those lists . . .