Dan Gross Finds the Win-Win Publishing Solution
Here’s an odd turn of events. In the midst of two simultaneous collapses–the finanicial system and the mediascape–Newsweek’s lead financial writer, Daniel Gross has found a way to turn both into a benefit.
It’s no secret that last September’s market swoon started a mad rush in publishing to “tell the story.” Even before the late Summer seize up, books had been commissioned that might explain the unprecedented failure of leadership, markets and regulation.
To date, only William Cohan’s book about Bear Stearns has been published. Charlie Gasparino, Andrew Ross Sorkin, Joe Nocera and Roger Lowenstein–accomplished writers and reporters all–are hard at work trying to wrestle the hydra-headed story onto the page. Will they succeed? And when their books are written will they get the publicity that is so essential to starting the sales cycle?
Dan Gross isn’t waiting to find out. He’s already published Dumb Money: How Our Greatest Financial Minds Bankrupted the Nation as an e-book. Now his publisher, The Free Press, has released the 106-page book as a $9.99 paperback. The Washington Post recently covered the innovative publishing strategy:
E-book exclusives — as opposed to e-books published as spinoffs of a printed version — remain rare, because the market is still too small to sustain them. But Gross’s book offers a revealing window on how such exclusives could reshape “p-book” publishing. The decision to bring “Dumb Money” out in paperback, for example, was made only after the e-book’s appeal had been established.
Gross told the Post:
“If I could do something quickly, get out before all the people who are doing doorstoppers,” he thought, “then I will have had my say, got a book out, everyone will have to account for me or ignore me — and I’ll move on.”
Which the Post saw as a smart move:
Besides, he was writing only 30,000 words. He had most of his material in his notebook already, so he could keep his day job. Most important, he could avoid the traditional, tortoiselike book publication schedule — and with it, months of anxiety about “Dumb Money” being overtaken by events.
According to Gross’s publisher, the e-book sold in the thousands, enough to feel they had seeded the market for a paperback edition that is priced lower than the e-book (smart!)
If you’re wondering what Gross has to add to our understanding of the collapse, you can read his Newsweek story:
On Wall Street—and in the culture at large—those who embraced the mentality of the bubble with the most fervor were richly rewarded. In the 1990s, the investment bankers who brought in hot technology IPOs were the new Big Swinging Dicks. In the Dumb Money decade, the more you borrowed to make bets on stocks and bonds, the more capital—social and financial—you acquired. Like real-estate brokers who realized they could make more money flipping condos than collecting commissions, large investment banks decided they would rather be principals than mere agents. Executives who preached caution were ritually shunned. [ . . . ]
Leverage was like an elaborate pulley system that allowed us all—from the humblest consumer to the most exalted private-equity baron—to hoist a mammoth weight. Then, in 2008, the rigging broke. The large weight plummeted, propelled by the twin forces of mass and gravity.
Or you could just go and buy the book.
Sources:
‘Dumb Money’ is Smart Gamble on the Allure of E-Books
by BOB THOMPSON
Washington Post; April 14, 2009
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/04/13/AR2009041302805.html
Reigning in Bubbles So They Won’t Pop
by DANIEL GROSS
Newsweek; February 28, 2009
http://www.newsweek.com/id/186949
April 16th, 2009 at 12:15 pm
Hmmm….Is Free Press a WaPo company? Newsweek and Slate — Gross’ main editorial venues — are. Convenient that WaPo gave him coverage .
April 16th, 2009 at 12:25 pm
“Tooth Fairy Economics and the “Stimulus”
6:29 PM PST, February 19, 2009
The problem with the “stimulus” package isn’t so much that it’s full of pork, bad as that is. The problem is the tooth-fairy economics on which it rests, and the idea that “spending” per se is what the economy needs now. Here’s my take on the subject
Meltdown also provides a timely history lesson to counter the current clamor for a new New Deal. The Great Depression, Woods demonstrates, was only as deep and as long as it was because of the government interventions by Herbert Hoover (no free-market capitalist, despite what your high school history teacher may have taught you) and Franklin D. Roosevelt (no savior of the American economy, in spite of what the mainstream media says). If you want to understand what caused the financial meltdown–and why none of the big-government solutions being tried today will work–Meltdown explains it all.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1596985879/b30ks-20
Meltdown by Thomas E. Woods, in Print, many purchased..
April 16th, 2009 at 1:03 pm
Seems like if the old media don’t Change radically, there will be no one left to Believe in them.
You wait, the Big O will be the first blogging POTUS before too long. In blogs we trust.
Malinvestment, Mark. Misallocation of capital, right? Guess who’s being stimulated?
Congresspeeps have been filling up the war chests yet again.
April 16th, 2009 at 5:29 pm
lb,
yes,and, to the other part: that’s also the answer to: “Why are the Tax Codes so complicated?”
as an aside, Trigger would be a better Senator than half the Congresspeep in that House.
3. Congress is composed of two independent houses. 1. The senate and, 2. The house of representatives.
4.- 1. The senate is composed of two senators from each state, chosen by the legislature thereof for six years, and each senator has one vote. They represent the states rather than the people, as each state has its equal voice and equal weight in the senate, without any regard to the disparity of population, wealth or dimensions. The senate have been, from the first formation of the government, divided into three classes; and the rotation of the classes was originally determined by lots, and the seats of one class are vacated at the end of the second year, and one-third of the senate is chosen every second year. Const. U. S. art 1, s. 3. This provision was borrowed from a similar one in some of the state constitutions, of which Virginia gave the first example.
5. The qualifications which the constitution requires of a senator, are, that he should be thirty years of age, have been nine years a citizen of the United States, and, when elected, be an inhabitant of that state for which he shall be chosen. Art. 1, s. 3.
11. Each house is made the judge of the election, returns, and qualifications of its own members. Art. 1, s. 5. As each house acts in these cases in a judicial character, its decisions, like the decisions of any other court of justice, ought to be regulated by known principles of law, and strictly adhered to, for the sake of uniformity and certainty. A majority of each house shall constitute a quorum to do business but a smaller number may adjourn from day to day, and may be authorized to compel the attendance of absent members, in such manner, and under such penalties, as, each may provide. Each house may determine the rules of its proceedings; punish its members for disorderly behaviour; and, with the concurrence of two-thirds, expel a member. Each house is bound to keep a journal of its proceedings, and from time to time, publish the same, excepting such parts as may, in their judgment, require secrecy; and to enter the yeas and nays on the journal, on any question, at the desire of one-fifth of the members present. Art. 1, s. 5.
12. The members of both houses are in all cases, except treason, felony, and breach of the peace, privileged from arrest during their attendance at the session of their respective houses, and in going to, and returning from the same. Art. 1, s. 6.
http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/congress