James Frey Controversy Causes Doubleday to Buy Ads

Bestselling author James Frey's confession that his memoir, A Million Little Pieces, embellished the truth has caused a PR disaster for the book's publishers, Doubleday and Anchor Books, Random House imprints. The publisher has issued a statement saying they initially backed the author when allegations of inaccuracies were raised because that's their policy. The statement goes on to read that once the allegations were found true, they began taking steps to correct the problem and apologized to their readers.

• Press Release: Doubleday and Anchor Books Statement (PDF File)
  
• Author's Note: James Frey's Note for Future Book Editions (PDF File)
  
• Report: A Million Little Pieces is Fiction

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Doubleday will now be taking out ads in national and trade publications in an effort to smooth everything over. Part of those corrections will include an author's note, a publisher's note and the publisher's commitment to not print anymore of the books until the new notes are included.

Oprah Winfrey chose Frey's memoir of recovering from drug addiction for her book club. When the Smoking Gun discovered inaccuracies, Winfrey originally stood behind the author before he admitted he had embellished the truth. She had him on the show one last time to pick up the pieces with her loyal book club readers and told him she felt "duped."

Frey's literary agent is also distancing herself from the PR nightmare. Kassie Evashevski of Brillstein-Grey Entertainment has dropped him from her client list.