Senate 'torture report' gets second printing

'The Senate Intelligence Committee Report on Torture,' which was released as a paperback and e-book by publisher Melville House, is getting a second printing of 10,000 copies.

“The Senate Intelligence Committee Report on Torture” is going into a second printing.

As we previously reported, publisher Melville House released a book version (both paperback and e-book) of the report on Dec. 30. The report discusses the controversial interrogation tactics used by the CIA on detainees between 2001 and 2006. A second printing of 10,000 copies has been ordered. 

Melville House co-founder and publisher Dennis Johnson spoke with Vulture about his company's initial decision to publish the report.

"Those were always inside deals," he said of the publication of such government documents as "The 9/11 Commission Report." "The government always struck a deal with a big publisher to do those books, which always kind of pissed me off – they are public documents, the government shouldn’t do that.... [After the government released the report on Dec. 9] we were looking at the report and trying to read this really terrible PDF, I realized, oh, nobody is going to publish this. You know the big publishers didn’t get preferred treatment, so we just decided on the spot we were going to do it, and off we went."

Meanwhile, Johnson told industry newsletter Shelf Awareness he believes the book is getting more popular now that the holidays are over.

“It's not something you want to buy at Christmas," he said. "But now that people are coming back into the normal swing of things, they're starting to take interest.”