>> we have books behind the register, and we're going to form a signing line. [inaudible conversations] >> every weekend booktv offers programming focused on nonfiction authors and ask books. and books. keep watching for more here on c-span2 and watch any of our past programs online at booktv.org. >> and now joining us on booktv is dennis johnson who is the co-publisher of melville house. melville house is publishing the senate intelligence committee report on torture. mr. johnson, what's the purpose of publishing something that's in the public domain? >> guest: well, for one thing it's not readily available as a

print book, and we felt that that was an important format for it to be in so that it could just circulate more widely, be more accessible to more people, be more affordable and findable for most people. we also felt that the edition of it that was issued by the government which is a very low resolution pdf format was very difficult to read. you know, it's not laid out and properly formatted like a book. it's just like a huge collection of pages, and it's very difficult to read because it's so low resolution, it's very difficult to search, it's almost impossible to search, in fact. so we wanted to make a better edition of that so that i don't know if people really want to read that edition the way you would read a book, but it's more useful to have that for researchers and academics and things like that to have a more searchable edition of the book.

>> host: now, how much of the report will you be publishing? will there be editing? commentary? >> guest: ing we are publishing exactly -- we are publishing exactly what the government has released. the only, the full report is over 6,000 pages long, but it has not been declassified. what has been declassified was declassified in april and only just released this month was the summary report issued by the senate subcommittee, and that came with an introduction by the head of the committee, dianne feinstein, and that will all be included as well as all the notes verifying all the documents in the report. we are not amending anything else to it. we feel that it should just be the core document. it's a historic document, it should not be freighted with any kind of apparatus that would give it any kind of bias or dilute the power of the pure report. >> host: now, what goes into

publishing a book of this sort where the material is already written but you're organizing it, i guess, would be a word to use? >> >> guest: no, we're just trying to make it readable. and as i say, it was issued as a low resolution pdf, very hard to scan, almost impossible to scan, in fact. a low resolution. there's lots of corruptions in the document. if you try to scan it and say there's a smudge, that smudge might then, you know, be translated as a word, it might trigger repetitions, it might trigger deletions. so we really had to take this document and, basically, retype it and reformat it just to, you know, to be able to lay it out like a proper book so that it'd be much more readable than in the edition the government issued. >> host: introduction? commentary? >> guest: as i say, just the introduction that came, that is actually part of the summary, an introduction to the findings of

the committee written by senator dianne feinstein, the head of the committee. >> host: now, have you published books like this before? >> guest: no, we haven't been allowed to publish books like this before. previously, the government has taken these reports such as the 9/11 committee report or the investigation that the senate did into the financial crisis, and it has awarded those books as if they were contracts to larger publishers and gave them the report early so that they could lay it out for the government and publish those books simultaneously with the government's release of the document. i've never quite understood why that was allowed. those are public documents. they should not be begin, you know, preferentially to one publisher or another. they belong to the people of the united states. finish the government did not do that this time. senator feinstein seems to have been opposed to the that. in the past, the government's begin production money to some publishers to do this.

senator feinstein seems opposed to -- seemed opposed to that, so those publishers without that advantage declined to do it. when we realized that's what was going on at melville house, we decided, well, these documents must exist as a print book, they must exist as a more readable digital book, and so we jumped to do it as quickly as we could. but there were all kinds of difficulties in doing that on short notice. it's called crashing a book. it's christmas time, so it's very hard to, you know, to get into the system. booksellers have already ordered their books for the season, warehouses are already shipping those books. it's hard to get on the trucks to be distributed, it's hard to get printed. the printers are very busy at that time of year, and it's hard to cut to the front of the line. so we had to pull a lot of strings, ask for a lot of favors. we had about five consecutives of the staff and a team of

volunteers staying up around the clock to, basically, retransbible the book, proof it, compare it to the original, make sure we didn't get anything wrong, lay it out and then print it. so it's been an amazing, an amazing five days just trying to jam that book into the system at christmas time. >> host: and is it being published as a paperback and an e-book? >> guest: that's correct. it'll be issued simultaneously as a trade paperback and also as an e-book. >> host: now, "the new york times" is reporting that your initial print run will be about 50,000. is that accurate? >> guest: well, that is accurate at the moment, although we're getting just deluged with requests for the book not only from booksellers large and small, but from libraries and all kinds of academics are contacting us asking how quickly they can get the book. and so it's looking right now like that number may have to go up. >> host: when will it be available?

>> guest: the official publication date is december 30th. we will have the book printed and in our warehouse friday, three days from now. and we will start shipping immediately. so it may start popping up a little before the 30th in various independent bookstores, but it'll be fully distributed around the country and available on online retailers and in brick and mortar retailers and independent and chain bookstores and you name it on december 30th. >> host: and dennis johnson is the co-publisher of melville house located in brooklyn, new york. here is the cover, the senate intelligence committee report on torture. thank you, sir. >> guest: thank you. >> retired lieutenant colonel john nagl talks about the development and effectiveness of the counterinsurgency strategy that the u.s. used in iraq and afghanistan. this is about an hour. p.m.