On Thursday night at the University Bookstore, where Jones read from her novel and signed copies, there were no demonstrations, no reason to call security.

On a wretchedly rainy night, only 10 people showed up to the reading area by the poetry section. That still left 25 empty seats.

Such is the fate of a new author, promoting a new book, even a book that two months ago was in the headlines.

Let's not forget, selling a book—either to a publisher or to the buying audience—is all pretty much a crapshoot anyway.

[Photo: Mark Harrison for the Seattle Times]

PBS executives also asked Ms. Jones to make changes to the film, including adding the panel discussion. By the time that happened, the fall schedule was set, said John Wilson, the PBS senior vice president for programming. He called the film “ultimately an impressive work of journalism,” and said, “our goal was to have it in a good slot.” That the first date offered happened to be the day after the Bush administration is to leave power “absolutely is coincidental,” he said. “It was the date that offered itself up.”

Ha ha, the show was "ultimately" good journalism, after some real journalists cleaned up the biased dreck that producer Sherry Jones turned in, right John? If this is just another one of those internecine conflicts endemic to nonprofit journalism, it's sure doing a good job disguising itself as a genuine scandal.

The silver lining here is that WNET has independently placed the show on various PBS affiliates, reaching markets with close to 85 percent of U.S. viewers. Many of them will have the opportunity to watch this documentary before the election. Many, also, will be boning up on DVDs of Fox torture-porn serial 24 ahead of the new season that night, or watching one of those incredible Fox News specials, but at least the option will be there!

The Bookseller magazine said on its Web site that Gibson Square publishing has decided to postpone the publication of "The Jewel of Medina."

The novel's American author, Sherry Jones of Spokane, Washington, also has decided to cancel a publicity tour to Germany to promote the book, the magazine said.

"We respect Sherry Jones's decision," the publisher said in a statement quoted by the magazine. "In her view the best thing to do is to postpone her visit and the publishing of the novel in Britain."

But surely they've set a new pub date, right? Right? Nope. [AP]

"Four years ago, he published Craig Unger's House of Bush, House of Saud after Random House, once again, pulled out - this time for fear of libel action. He is also the publisher of OJ Simpson's If I Did It and Alexander Litvinenko's Blowing Up Russia." [Guardian]

Now he's in hiding—which is probably going to totally derail the Sarah Palin biography his house, Gibson Square, was planning on publishing next week. (And we need a Palin bio to defend our freedom right now.)

Maybe not, though: firebombs or not, the NYT reports that Jewel of Medina will be published any-fucking-way. Well-played, sir.

[Photo: BBC]

That's technically true: Random House's ignorance killed Jewel of Medina. They're ultimately the ones to blame for the backwardness here. But Spellberg certainly didn't help, as publication was ticking along just fine before she chimed in:

"I never had this power, nor did I single-handedly stop the book's publication. Random House made its final decision based on the advice of other scholars, conveniently not named in the article, and based ultimately on its determination of corporate interests... I felt it my duty to warn the press of the novel's potential to provoke anger among some Muslims.

...The novel provides no new reading of Aisha's life, but actually expands upon provocative themes regarding Muhammad's wives first found in an earlier novel by Salman Rushdie, "The Satanic Verses," which I teach."

What self-promotion! Have we mentioned that Spellberg is also under contract for a book at Knopf—an imprint of Random House?

Galleycat points out,

"The same company that decided it wasn't ready to publish a novel about Muhammad's wife this month had no problems releasing David Ebershoff's The 19th Wife, a novel narrated in part by the real-life ex-wife of Brigham Young, who was excommunicated from the church and became a vocal critic of its polygamous practices."