Freywatch Back to Square One

Page Six is breathlessly reporting the cancellation of James Frey’s two-book deal with Riverhead, complete with confirmation from “Frey’s rep.” (His Riverhead publicist for My Friend Leonard? His personal publicist?) They’re also noting that, despite all his woes, “none of the negativity has had much impact on sales of the book, which recently hit the 3 million mark.” That’s a refreshing change of pace from the usual gleeful bean-counting of each week’s dropping figures. I haven’t sat down with the Bookscan figures, but frankly I’d be curious to see whether or not the extended publicity might have actually stemmed the inevitable decline in sales that comes a couple months after your Book Club date with Oprah has come and gone.

Create a social media strategy, launch your campaign, and track the results in our Social Media Marketing Boot Camp starting February 16. The online event and workshop will feature speakers including The Onion‘s Baratunde Thurston (left), Facebook’s Morin Oluwole, and bitly’s Tim Devane. Register now.