Authors profit from Madoff

The Bernard Madoff books are in the works.

Less than one week after the former chairman of the Nasdaq stock exchange was arrested in an alleged multibillion-dollar Ponzi scheme, publishers HarperCollins and the Random House Publishing Group each reported that they had signed up books about the scandal.

In 2010, HarperCollins will release an investigative work, currently untitled, by reporter-anchor Andrew Kirtzman, who has been featured on the New York television stations WCBS and NY1.

Random House said it will publish a Madoff book, also currently untitled, by Richard Behar, a journalist who has written for Time, Fortune and other magazines.

Madoff’s family essentially turned him in last week, blowing the whistle on what authorities said he described as a “giant Ponzi scheme.”

Authorities say Madoff, 70, confessed to family members that he had for years been paying returns to certain investors out of the principal received from others until he had only $200 million to $300 million remaining.

The charge against Madoff carries a potential penalty of up to 20 years in prison.