Sports Illustrated: Pay for Play?

Three book excerpts: Carl Hiassen on golf, The Greatest (NFL) Game Ever and Dan Patch, followed within a couple of weeks in each case by full page ads in the mag.
I enjoyed the book excerpts but I do wonder if SI arranged a quid pro quo on the deal.
If you're a book publisher why buy a full page ad when the magazine just gave you 5 or 6 pages of publicity?

 

Or is it a case of, "We have no good long-form stories on tap, get me Lippman at Pendant Publishing!"

 

I think this is pretty standard fare in magazine publishing. Generally, the sales side proposes the deal to the book publisher (or vice versa), and then theygo to the editor and say something to the effect of "How would you like to have an excerpt of this book for the magazine?"

If it's good content, as you seem to indicate, the editor will be thrilled to have 5 or 6 pages of quality material without having to expend huge resources to fill it. He can take the time, effort and money he would have spent there and use it to improve the rest of the publication.

 

Or they just pocket the money and not bother trying to improve the publication.

 

I figure SI is pretty busy ramping up their Olympic coverage, and NFL and College football previews about now, so no, I don't have a problem with the book excerpts. But they should have noted that Charlie Leehrson, who wrote the Dan Patch book, is one of the top eds at the mag.