Mac book prose

The front page of Apple's website the day after Steve Jobs's death

Following his death, there has been an outpouring of kind words for Steve Jobs, an alternatingly kind and iron-fisted visionary credited with bringing us the personal computer and changing the way we do so many things in our daily lives (and the way we think), even if we don't use Macs, iPhones, iPods, or other Apple products directly. There is clearly a huge amount of interest and good will surrounding the man.



But some of that goes too far. Courtesy of Elizabeth Woyke at Forbes, we get word that one publisher has frantically upped the publication date of their book so they can ride this wave of interest following Mr Jobs's untimely demise:

Called I, Steve: Steve Jobs In His Own Words, it was originally set to publish in March 2012. When Jobs resigned as Chief Executive of Apple, the publisher, Agate Publishing, moved publication up to November 15, 2011. Now Illinois-based Agate is working to get the book to stores by the end of next week or the following week, which would be several weeks to a month earlier than the already-amended publication date.

“We’re doing everything we can to rush the book,” said Agate President Doug Seibold in an interview. I, Steve’s 160 pages are complete. The next steps lie in the hands of the book’s printer and distributor: laminating the book’s cover, which features a color photo of Jobs, binding the book, shipping it to warehouses and, finally, delivering it to stores.

Seibold says the rush is a response to increased interest in the book. He estimates that orders from online retailers like Amazon.com, traditional booksellers and wholesalers more than doubled in the past 24 hours as news of Jobs’ passing became public.

Maybe I'm a bit old school or just don't have the drive to make gobs and gobs of dough, but I can’t help but think that this rush to make money off the man’s death is a wee bit tacky.

But that’s me. I guess some people just think different.

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