While publishers large and small are planning to issue versions of the still-unwritten January 6th report, only Publishers Lunch is bold enough (or crazy enough) to bring to market a nearly complete record of THE TRIAL: The DOJ’s Suit to Block Penguin Random House’s Acquisition of Simon & Schuster.
It may not be the “big book” of the fall season, but it’s certainly a strong candidate for the biggest book. (Or ebook, since we’re still figuring out the mechanics of doing something so long through print-on-demand.) This digital doorstop, at nearly
700,000 words, brings together the significant day-by-day antitrust trial coverage and insider analysis from Publishers Lunch—a normal-sized book on its own—with an edited version of the full public testimony, broadly available for the first time. Also, an appendix culls over 100 pages of the most significant, and insightful, internal documents and emails entered into evidence. Plus we added key pre- and post-trial documents and filings for the most comprehensive account possible.
THE TRIAL is the ultimate and nearly complete answer to trial by tweet—it’s the trial by the actual testimony, at very full length, with the record standing for all to see, plus the context and analysis we offered throughout. While it may be more of an “anticipated small seller” we know that it will nonetheless have a significant place on the shelves for anyone interested in how book publishing works—told through the words of dozens of ceos, literary agents, publishers and authors.
We are publishing the ebook directly ourselves, so files are rolling out now: You can purchase it from: Apple Books; Barnes & Noble; Google Play; and Kobo for now. For librarians, it should be available through Overdrive next week. Or, for anyone comfortable downloading an epub or pdf file and loading it onto your device or reading app of choice (including the “send to Kindle” feature), you can also buy the ebook directly from Publishers Marketplace.
And for more information, check out the complete Table of Contents and press release.
Bringing together all of this material into readable, well-organized form was a significant undertaking, but we thought it was important for the community and for the industry to publish and preserve the full record of what happened in August. Led by our projects director Robin Dellabough, it took the efforts of the full team at Publishers Lunch plus a crew of talented ebook, production and technology specialists (all credited on our copyright page) to pull this together and get it distributed.