FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

September 24, 2003

Contact: Kathryn Kathryn
Ph: (212) 255-0200 ext.263
Email: kblough@publishers.org

ASSOCIATION OF AMERICAN PUBLISHERS ANNOUNCES GET CAUGHT READING AT SEA PROMOTION

New York, NY, September 24, 2003 – Time to get out the suntan lotion, find a comfortable deck chair and open a popular paperback book. The Association of American Publishers (AAP) announces an exciting extension of the popular “Get Caught Reading” program called “Get Caught Reading at Sea” (GCRS), an incredible cruise ship adventure for reading enthusiasts that will take place in October of 2004. Readers, and some of their favorite authors, will have an opportunity to relax and mingle in the casual luxury of a Carnival Cruise ship as it visits exotic ports-of-call in the Western Caribbean.

The ship will sail from Galveston, Texas on October 17, 2004 and will visit ports in Belize, Cozumel, and Progreso, Mexico during this seven-day, seven-night trip. Twenty to twenty-five best-selling and emerging authors will be on board to host daily group sessions to discuss their craft and greet their readers at cocktail parties and dinners. Paperback book titles participating in the promotion, bearing the GCRS logo, will be available in stores from January through July 2004 and will include instructions on booking the cruise with a $250 GCRS discount. Additionally, twenty staterooms will be given away to winners in a national radio promotion.

Major publishing houses are expected to earmark about 130 paperback titles from as many authors in all genres for this initiative. It is anticipated that over 100 million copies of the participating books will be distributed, each sporting the GCRS logo on the cover. Details on the event and participating authors will be available beginning in November 2003 at www.getcaughtreadingatsea.com.

The “Get Caught Reading at Sea” promotion will be nationally advertised on selected radio stations in 20 major listening markets over a six-month period. Each of the twenty markets will receive one “Free Getaway,” an ocean-view stateroom for two, to award to a lucky listener. In addition, the program will receive print exposure, web-site support and mailing fanfare within many book clubs. Retailers across the country will be supporting the promotion with a dedicated display of participating titles. This will be the first national program of its kind—a campaign that brings publishers, distributors and retailers together in an effort to increase awareness of paperback books for recreational reading.

Get Caught Reading is an international public service campaign that AAP launched in 1999 to encourage a love of reading. AAP is the principal trade association for the U.S. book publishing industry with some 300 members, comprising most of the major commercial book publishers in the United States, as well as smaller and medium-sized houses, non-profit publishers, university presses, and scholarly societies. AAP members publish hardcover and paperback books in every field and a range of educational materials for the elementary, secondary, post-secondary and professional markets. Members of the Association also produce computer software and electronic products and services. The protection of intellectual property rights, the defense of free expression, and the promotion of reading and literacy, especially among the young, are among the Association’s primary concerns.