The NYT Ad
This is from a letter from Janet Morrissey of PublishAmerica to Mr. Munson of the Maryland Attorney General's office, from last September:
<BLOCKQUOTE>
> PublishAmerica was approached by the New
> York Times this summer to see if we could
> work together in advertising our authors.
> The New York Times recommended that we
> let our authors pay for the
> advertisement. We decided against this,
> and instead committed ourselves to three
> half-page ads in their renowned Book
> Review Section, at an expense out of our
> pocket of more than $50,000.00.</BLOCKQUOTE>
Per the NYT <a href="http://www.nytadvertising.com/was/files/others/2004_Rate_Book_PDF_Books.pdf" target="_new">rate card</a>, at the Small Press rate (and PA certainly qualifies: The NYT defines "small press" as an independent publisher with press runs that don't exceed 8,000 copies per title), a half page (September) costs $17,635, while 2/5 page vertical (October) costs $14,280. Total costs so far $31,915.
If they committed themselves to "three half-page ads," then the Times owes them some money back, because the October ad was significantly less than 1/2 page.
If PA's next ad is going to be in the 28 November edition, they have to get the materials to the Times today. (Yo, Infocenter! If you're reading this (and I know you are), it isn't too late to call the Times back and say "Hold on! We're going to make that a half page, okay?" I know you wouldn't want to lie too much to a government investigator.)
If it's going to be in the 21 November edition, the materials had to be in a week ago.
We've recently seen ads from iUniverse in the NYT Book Review. Looks like the advertising salesmen at the Times called all the vanity PODs last summer....