Instant e-books: 'Beyond Bin Laden' turnaround time of 1 week

On Monday, newsmedia publishers around the globe were scrambling to report on every aspect of the Osama bin Laden story, across all media platforms. But one form of publishing, books, has always been expected to be the one of slowest of them all, both to create and have published. Not anymore.

By Thursday night, Jon Meacham visited “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart” to promote his new instant e-book about the former Al Qaeda leader. The essay collection, “Beyond Bin Laden: America and the Future of Terror,” will be published by Random House this coming Monday, and is available for pre-order now.

Essays for the book have been written since Sunday night, when it was announced that Bin Laden had been killed, said Mecham, the former editor of Newsweek and current co-anchor of “Need to Know” on PBS.

“We hit it hard on Monday and you can pre-order it now.” he said, describing the turnaround time.

Writers of the essays include Richard Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations; Karen Hughes, former U.S. under secretary of state; James Baker, former secretary of state; Bing West, former assistant secretary of defense, and more.

The e-book is 75 pages, and costs US$1.99, according to Publishers Weekly. It will also be available as a downloadable audio file.

Image: The Daily Show