Slate.com, PublicAffairs Announce Book Deal

REDMOND, Wash., and NEW YORK, Feb. 28, 2000 — Slate.com ( http://www.slate.com/ ), the leading online magazine and a member of the MSN™ network of Internet services, today announced a book deal with PublicAffairs ( http://www.publicaffairsbooks.com/ ), the New York-based publishing house.

“The Slate Diaries,”
a compilation of the weekly diaries published each week on Slate.com with an introduction written by Slate.com Editor Michael Kinsley, is scheduled for publication on PublicAffairs’ fall 2000 list. Contributors to Slate.com’s Diary feature have included Roger Ebert, William F. Buckley, Beck, David Sedaris, Bill Gates, Cynthia Ozick and Benazir Bhutto.

“Slate isn’t just the best writing on the Web – week after week it is full of some the best writing anywhere,”
said Geoff Shandler, the senior editor at PublicAffairs who acquired
“The Slate Diaries.” “We’re thrilled to be working with Michael Kinsley and the rest of the Slate.com team. ‘The Slate Diaries’ is going to be fun to publish and even more fun to read.”

In the past year, PublicAffairs has published
“Blind Man’s Bluff”
by Sherry Sontag and Christopher Drew, which was a New York Times best seller;
“The Crisis of Global Capitalism”
by George Soros, which was an international best seller;
“American Greats”
by Robert Wilson and Stanley Marcus;
“Fortress America”
by William Greider; and
“A Place Called Waco”
by David Thibodeau and Leon Whiteson.

In keeping with Slate.com’s innovative approach to publishing an online magazine, Slate.com and PublicAffairs structured the book deal as a co-publishing venture, not a typical royalty deal.

“This book deal further expands Slate.com’s offline marketing efforts,”
said Scott Moore, Slate.com publisher.
“Combined with our recent announcement of a pending SlateTV show on public TV stations throughout the United States, ‘The Slate Diaries’ will expose more people to the quality and depth of Slate’s editorial content.”

Since last February, when the Slate Ò online magazine of news, politics and culture went to a free-content site, Slate.com has experienced a 300 percent increase in the number of unique site visitors per month.

About Slate.com

Slate.com is the leading online magazine, founded and edited by Michael Kinsley and published by Microsoft. Slate.com provides readers with an informed perspective on news, politics and culture and is a member of the MSN network of Internet services from Microsoft that helps people better organize the Web around what’s important to them.

About PublicAffairs

PublicAffairs is a nonfiction book publisher specializing in works of journalism, history, biography, memoir and social criticism by today’s most influential writers and public figures. PublicAffairs was founded by veteran journalist and publishing executive Peter Osnos. Osnos has dedicated PublicAffairs to publishing intelligent nonfiction for general readers creatively and enthusiastically at a time when larger publishers are finding it economically unattractive to do so. The ultimate hope is that each book will broaden the readers’ understanding of the world.

In Osnos’s own words,
“Our books are intended for a particular community of intelligent, non-doctrinaire, politically and socially engaged people, people interested in the world around them and in the world of ideas. PublicAffairs will continually cultivate that community, and provide opportunities for dialog among the readers, writers and booksellers who consider themselves a part of it. We want readers to know that the PublicAffairs logo means: here’s my kind of book.”

About Microsoft

Founded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq
“MSFT”
) is the worldwide leader in software for personal and business computing. The company offers a wide range of products and services designed to empower people through great software – any time, any place and on any device.

Note to editors: If you are interested in viewing additional information on Microsoft, please visit the Microsoft Web page at http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/ on Microsoft’s corporate information pages.

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