Public May Buy Copies of Report at Bookstores Today

As the long-awaited report by the 9/11 commission is given to Congress today, it will also go on sale at bookstores throughout the country.

The same-day release in book form of the report meant that the publisher, W.W. Norton & Co., had to secretly print it and airmail it under wraps to bookstores.

The concurrent release was an idea put forward by Commission Chairman Thomas H. Kean, the former New Jersey governor, who argued that the public should have the same access as government officials.

More than 500,000 copies of the report -- some estimates are as high as 700,000 -- have been printed.

Norton said it could not disclose details of how it printed and distributed the paperback before today’s government publication.

“I’m pledged to secrecy,” said W. Drake McFeely, the president and chairman of Norton, which describes itself as the nation’s largest independent, employee-owned book publishing firm.

When Kean announced in May that Norton would publish the report, he said he wanted “the public to read the commission’s findings, evaluate its recommendations and engage in a dialogue on how to improve our nation’s security.”

Commission members were initially skeptical of Kean’s idea of same-day publication, fearing security breaches.

But they came around to it after he stressed the need for the public to have immediate access.

The report will sell for $10 in most stores.

It is also available for sale on the Internet.

Amazon.com, the Seattle-based retailer, ranked the book 42nd on its popularity list Wednesday, up from 106th a day earlier.

Norton said that a free copy would be given to every family that lost a relative in the Sept. 11 attacks.

In Washington, where the book is expected to attract a large readership, bookstore owners were readying themselves for its release.

Mark La Framboise, a buyer for the Politics & Prose Bookstore, said most customers inquiring about the book were “news junkies, policy heads and members of the journalistic community.”

Louise Brockett, vice president and director of publicity at Norton, said the book represents the official report in its entirety and that it would be in print for years to come.

“Norton views this as a historic document,” she said. “We will keep this in print for generations.”

Other reports have been printed in paperback over the years, but never in this fashion -- an extraordinarily large printing done by a private company and delivered on the same day it was presented to Congress.

The commission received no advance payment from Norton and would receive no royalties.

Norton came under some scrutiny in May after an article in the New York Times suggested that it got the contract because of a long-standing relationship with the Sept. 11 commission’s executive director, Philip D. Zelikow.

Zelikow is also director of the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia, and he has written or edited a number of books published by Norton.

The suggestion of impropriety does not sit well with Norton’s McFeely.

“I’m a little offended it even became an issue,” he said. “We made a bid thinking of it more as a public service than as a profit venture.”

Although Norton remained mum on the logistics of putting out the report, Peter Osnos, the chief executive of PublicAffairs Books, said the cash outlay was huge for the winning bidder.

“They had to spend a vast amount on paper and air shipments,” he said.

Osnos said his company could not compete with the $10 price of the book and instead had printed a separate title based on the preliminary Sept. 11 commission staff reports.

A free copy of the report will be available online for downloading today at

https://911commission.gov.

Other publishing houses are expected to come out with their versions soon, most of them with supplemental materials intended to make them more attractive to readers.