BookTour.com co-founder Kevin Smokler has been named vice president of marketing at Byliner.

Smokler will be responsible for overseeing marketing initiatives, social media projects, and community management at the new nonfiction site. Smokler previously served as CEO of BookTour.com. That site offers tools and services for authors to promote their books and for readers to have access to the authors.

Smokler had this statement in the press release: “Four of my great loves–reading, journalism, publishing and technology–all showed up in one job. How often does that happen?”

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Greg Mortenson‘s former climbing partner, Scott Darsney, sent an email to Outside magazine entitled “Three Cups of Tea Is Not Diminished by One Cup of WikiLeaks.” Darsney was one of the sources Jon Krakauer used to write his essay, ”Three Cups of Deceit”–an essay alleging that the author fabricated parts of his memoirs.

Mortenson (pictured, via) wrote about a 1993 visit to the village of Korphe in his memoir, Three Cups of Tea. In the email, Darsney wrote that during the 1993 climb up K2 mountain Mortenson had gotten lost but returned half-a-day later. He theorizes that it’s plausible Mortenson may have been in Korphe during that time.

Here’s an excerpt from Darsney’s email: “If Jon Krakauer and some of Greg’s detractors had taken the time to have three or more cups of tea with Greg and others—instead of one cup of tea with a select few who would discredit him—they would have found some minor problems and transgressions. But to the extent to call it all ‘lies’ and ‘fraud’? No way. They would have come to very different conclusions. It takes a lot longer than one journalistic research cycle to have three cups of tea with someone.”

A 60 Minutes report last night accused author Greg Mortenson (pictured, via) of fabricating parts of his bestselling memoirs and misusing funds from his charity, the Central Asia Institute (CAI).

The report examined three particular issues: (1) Did Mortenson first visit the village of Korphe after a mountain climbing trip as he wrote in his memoir, Three Cups of Tea? (2) Was Mortenson captured by the Taliban as he alleged in his follow-up Stones into Schools? (3) Is the CAI carrying out its charitable mission with the money it collects from philanthropists and donors? According to several sources who were interviewed, the answer is “no” to all three questions.

Former CAI donor Jon Krakauer called Mortenson’s first meeting with Korphe villages “a beautiful story” and “a lie.” Mansur Khan Mahsud denied that the Taliban kidnapped the author.  Mahsud appears in a photograph from the alleged kidnapping, but works as the research director of a respected Islamabad think tank.

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