While this is about newspapers and a scandal it has many
points of interest for all areas of publishing. Some hard
figures give an indication of the selling power in interest.

My intention is for all book publishing lists to see this
and if I have mised some and you think it could go there
please send on, with or without attribution to me. The point
to me is the proof that if you have a worthy topic and
market adequately sales follow.

Joseph Harris

http://adage.com/globalnews/article?article_id=136771
[free sign up is needed to read article]

British Expense Scandal Shows Consumers Will Still Pay for
Print
Telegraph Moves More Than 600,000 Extra Newspapers in 10
Days
Posted by Emma Hall on 05.20.09 @ 11:33 AM



LONDON (AdAge.com) -- A huge political scandal in the U.K.
is proving a powerful demonstration that consumers will
still pay for the printed word if the story is strong
enough.


Even though all the sordid details of the scandal have been
available free on the Telegraph's website, its newspaper
sales have nevertheless continued to rise.

The Telegraph newspaper is estimated to have sold more than
600,000 extra copies in the past 10 days (its daily average
is 817,000) ......One MP claimed $3,400 in expenses to have
a moat dredged and a piano tuned on his 13th-century estate;
another claimed $25,000 to pay a mortgage that doesn't
exist; another claimed $590 for horse manure; and yet
another claimed $10 for pay-per-view pornography. The
speaker of the House of Commons, who is supposed to keep the
system in check, is the first speaker to be forced out of
office since 1695.
The information about 646 MPs' expenses during the past five
years was stolen from a classified computer, but police have
said they are not going to investigate how the Telegraph
obtained the data -- about 2 million documents -- because
they don't believe it would be in the public's interest....

...Traditional media are still useful in getting big stories
out there and causing sensations....

[more]



Note: This story in fact is now the beginning of a
constitutional crisis, and Brown has started talking about a
constitutional conference. However, his authority is nil,
and the public have already forced the rapid abandonment of
the system in place, and the removal of many MPs. Now the
swell for a very fast election is growing.

JH