Home
Search transcripts:    Advanced Search
Notable New     Yorkers
Select     Notable New Yorker

Frank StantonFrank Stanton
Photo Gallery
Transcript

Session:         Page of 755

so much knowledge about different businesses that you get into the AEA group--they get that for free, because you're a member of the club. That's the magic of the arrangement.

Q:

The brilliance of it really. What was your venture with Book Digest? It was a magazine venture that fell through, you said.

Stanton:

John Veronas and Nick [Nicholas H.] Charney started a magazine called Psychology Today, I think, and did very handsomely with it. Sold it. Then [they] bought a magazine--what was it called--it's gone--and they lost almost everything they made with Book Digest by trying to promote and build the magazine they acquired. Saturday Review of Literature! Now Saturday Review they tried to make four magazines out of, because there were four strong parts to the magazine. As a concept it made a lot of sense, but in the marketplace it didn't work.

John finally lost his shirt on that magazine, and decided he was going to start something else--came up with the idea of doing a digest of best-sellers. Did you ever see it--Book Digest?

Q:

I've seen it, but I haven't really--

Stanton:

The format was exactly the same as Reader's Digest. Same small--and we had, I think, ten books that we would review and quote from. I thought it had a lot to recommend it and put a lot of money into it. And lost a lot of money. Or thought I was going to lose it. We finally sold part of it to Time Warner. It wasn't Time Warner then. What became Time Warner.





© 2006 Columbia University Libraries | Oral History Research Office | Rights and Permissions | Help