Oprah Winfrey's awesome power truly knows no bounds. After refusing for the last two-and-a-half weeks to take any responsibility for James Frey's faux-nonfiction, Doubleday & Anchor Books, the Random House division that published A Million Little Pieces finally issued an apology today — timestamped 4:51 p.m., before Oprah was even off the air.

They'll be adding a publisher's note and an author's note to all future editions, they'll add a line to the cover announcing the presence of the notes (but not, God forbid, announcing that the book is a lie), and they won't print any more copies until the notes and announcement have been added.

They will not, however, be giving you your money back.

Suckas.

The full statement is after the jump.

News from
Doubleday & Anchor Books

The controversy over James Frey s A MILLION LITTLE PIECES has caused serious concern at Doubleday and Anchor Books. Recent interpretations of our previous statement notwithstanding, it is not the policy or stance of this company that it doesn t matter whether a book sold as nonfiction is true. A nonfiction book should adhere to the facts as the author knows them.

It is, however, Doubleday and Anchor s policy to stand with our authors when accusations are initially leveled against their work, and we continue to believe this is right and proper. A publisher s relationship with an author is based to an extent on trust. Mr. Frey s repeated representations of the book s accuracy, throughout publication and promotion, assured us that everything in it was true to his recollections. When the Smoking Gun report appeared, our first response, given that we were still learning the facts of the matter, was to support our author. Since then, we have questioned him about the allegations and have sadly come to the realization that a number of facts have been altered and incidents embellished.

We bear a responsibility for what we publish, and apologize to the reading public for any unintentional confusion surrounding the publication of A MILLION LITTLE PIECES.

We are immediately taking the following actions:

• We are issuing a publisher s note to be included in all future printings of the book.

• James Frey is writing an author s note that will appear in all future printings of the book.

• The jacket for all future editions will carry the line With new notes from the publisher and from the author.

• Although demand for the book remains high, we are not currently reprinting or fulfilling orders until we make the above changes.

• The publisher s note and author s note will be posted prominently on the randomhouse.com website.

• The publisher s note and author s note will promptly be sent to booksellers for inclusion in previously shipped copies of the book.

• An advertisement concerning these developments will appear in national and trade publications in the next few days.

David Drake
VP and Director of Publicity
Doubleday Books
xxxx@randomhouse.com
212/782-XXXX

Russell Perreault
VP and Director of Publicity
Anchor Books
xxxx@randomhouse.com
212-572-XXXX

Contact information for this author is not available.