Seymour Hersh's New Book? You Won't Find It at Borders!
Reported by Marie Therese - September 12, 2004 -
This morning at 10:30 AM Pacific Time (1:30 PM Eastern Time) I went to my local Borders store to pre-order a copy of Seymour Hersh's new book "Chain of Command: The Road from 9/11 to Abu Ghraib". The book, promoted by Mr. Hersh on this morning's "Meet the Press" with Tim Russert, has a publication date of Monday, September 13th. The clerk at Borders was shocked to discover that her store had ZERO coming in and ZERO on order.
She quickly checked the five other Bay Area stores and discovered the same thing. I asked her - point blank - if HarperCollins was the publisher and she confirmed that fact. She also confirmed that copies of Kitty Kelley's new book on the Bush family, with a publication date of Tuesday, September 14th, were already in the store. Kelley's book is published by Random House.
A call placed to the Barnes & Noble store at Fisherman's Wharf showed that they had 15 copies on order with a "strict on sale for tomorrow" designation. The clerk assured me that meant copies would probably be available sometime Monday the 13th, although he had to put me on hold while he asked his manager. Barnes & Noble had none in stock at the time of my call.
Quick calls to several local independently owned booksellers in San Francisco and Marin County revealed that both stores had the book on order but, like Barnes & Noble, were not sure exactly when they would arrive in the store.
Phone calls to Borders stores in Phoenix AZ, Boulder CO and Washington D.C. (18th & "L") confirmed what I had been told at my local store. ZERO coming in, ZERO on order.
My local Waldenbooks, a subsidiary of the Borders Group, told me they can't order the book because it's not in their warehouse. The woman I spoke with seemed surprised that there was a publication date so close and she could not get the book.
Several of the clerks informed me that the trouble with distribution lay, not with Borders, but with the publishing house, HarperCollins. One young man suggested that perhaps the books weren't ready yet. I told him that I used to work in the publishing business and no author would be scheduled on a national TV show to promote a book unless there were copies available. In the event there were production problems and the interview couldn't be postponed, the publishing house would have insisted that the new publication date be announced.
HarperCollins, publisher of Hersh's book, is a subsidiary of Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation, which also owns FOX News Channel.
According to Forbes.com Borders Group, Inc.'s CEO is Gregory P. Josefowicz. In 2002 Josefowicz faced criticism from Ralph Nader and a group of 27 writers for a new policy that limited distribution of lesser known books. (Borders CEO: Don't Limit Access to Books, Ideas)
Either the management of HarperCollins and/or Borders Group Inc. is totally incompetent or there's some other reason Seymour Hersh's book has been delayed. Wonder what that is?
