Avalanche of crisis books is coming
Publishers are getting piles of pitches for books about the financial crisis -- one says the number of proposals for business books he receives has doubled. Rico Gagliano has more on the story.
A customer browses a large selection of books at a New York City bookstore. (Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
More on The Economy, Wall Street, Arts - Culture, America's Financial Crisis
TEXT OF STORY
Scott Jagow: What do you know? People are already writing books about this financial collapse. One publisher, Penguin, got a little lucky with their timing. A couple weeks ago, they released a book on spectacular corporate collapses. It's called "Billion Dollar Lessons." Looks like that will be the first of many books to come. Rico Gagliano reports.
Rico Gagliano: Seth Ditchik is senior editor at Princeton University Press. He fields book proposals from business authors. Since the economy imploded, he says proposals have doubled.
Seth Ditchik: There's gonna be, as far as I can tell, an avalanche of these sorts of books over the next 18 months or so.
That's not unusual in the wake of a big business news story. But Adrian Zackheim, President of Penguin's Portfolio imprint, says this is the biggest business news story in years.
Adrian Zackheim: The only one I can think of that's comparable over the last decade or so would be the Enron crisis.
So as publishers sift through the piles of pitches, what are they looking for? Princeton University Press's Seth Ditchik says he's focusing on historic analyses of similar meltdowns.
Ditchik: Any book that we undertake now won't be out until next year, unless Alan Greenspan calls and says "I wanna do a book with you." So I think the historical approach will have much more of a life.
Hopefully, a longer life than the crisis itself.
In Los Angeles, I'm Rico Gagliano fro Marketplace.
Comments
Comment | Refresh
From San Francisco, CA, 09/25/2008
Hey Mike, Looks like now is the time to publish that "Flash in the Pan" book, heh? I'm still working as the IT manager at SF Dept. of Children, Youth & Their Families www.dcyf.org. Katya and I moved to San Mateo. We have a 2 year old son -- Kai. Hope you and Milly are doing well. Shawn
Post a Comment: Please be civil, brief and relevant.
Email addresses are never displayed, but they are required to confirm your comments. All comments are moderated. Marketplace reserves the right to edit any comments on this site and to read them on the air if they are extra-interesting. Please read the Comment Guidelines before posting.
You must be 13 or over to submit information to American Public Media. The information entered into this form will not be used to send unsolicited email and will not be sold to a third party. For more information see Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policy.