Having read a fair amount of the authors’ work, I agree that they are dispicable. Have they done more harm the Bin Ladin? That might be over the top.:) I think in the long run they have clearly had a hand in attacking the US Consitution, however, and that is pretty disturbing.

That said, Regnary/Eagle has been doing this for years, in order to manipulate the “sales” figures. By inflating the raw numbers through such give-aways, they can push thier books onto various best-seller lists and thus get better placement/media buzz for the next title.

Personally, I think the five authors are not bright enough to realize that the Bookscan numbers are more likely to reflect their real sales potential, so that Regnery’s manipulations have probably actually helped them in the long run, by grossly inflating their sales potential and getting them into places that a more traditional model would never see them reach.

The other thing I don’t get is why they are so shocked, all of a sudden. Regnery has been doing this since the 1980s. The whole industry and interested outsiders have known of it for years. It has not been a secret, and Regnery has often complained that trackers like Bookscan omit too many of their alternate sales and grossly underinflate their numbers. Seems to me the authors have been remarkably obtuse for all these years, to suddenly ‘discover’ this now.:)

Regnery, BTW, was the original US Publisher of Von Mainstein’s and Hans Spiedel’s Memoirs, so they have a long association with publishing Fascism.:)

Dave Powell