The Washington Post reported today that a Google Books entry accidentally broke the embargo on Jimmy Carter’s upcoming release, White House Diary. While Google has since removed the preview, the first 50 pages of White House Diary were available briefly as a Google Books preview ahead of its September 20th publication date.
Like many political memoirs, the publisher won’t send advance copies of the book until its release date. While publications regularly buck these embargoes, the Google Books excerpt made a scoop for the newspaper.
White House Diary editor and Macmillan executive vice president John Sterling offered this comment: “We consider this the sort of glitch that is bound to happen occasionally given the technical complexities involved in coordinating the publication of books in both physical and electronic form.”