Add the Huffington post to the list of publications stepping into the e-book business.
As the New York Times, Vanity Fair, Boston Globe and others have done before them, the Huffington Post released its first e-book Wednesday, “A People’s History of the Great Recession,” based on HuffPo reporter Arthur Delaney’s blogging about the economic crisis.
Delaney has written about individuals and families facing myriad difficulties, from unemployment to lack of insurance to mortgage problems.
In a post on HuffPo Wednesday, Media Group President and Editor-in-Chief Arianna Huffington explained how Delaney’s beat came about:
“Two years ago, I asked Arthur Delaney, one of our gifted young reporters at the Huffington Post, to focus his coverage on one thing: putting flesh and blood on the data of our economic crisis, and bringing to our readers the real stories of the unemployed, of those facing foreclosure, of the 'formerly middle class.'"
"A People's History of the Great Recession" (excerpt here) will be available through Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Apple and Kobo.
The e-book may become a robust content distribution strategy for websites like HuffPo, where content disappears quickly. In e-book form, the site’s mix of snappy posts and reported journalism lives on.
The site’s next e-book, to be released Sept. 20, will be "How We Won," Aaron Belkin’s story of the campaign to repeal the U.S. military’s Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy.