The Last Word In Business

Transcript

DAVID GREENE, HOST:

Today's last word in business is really written by Steve Inskeep.

STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

And really written by David Greene. We feel obliged to mention that because a British author is in trouble for writing under a pseudonym.

GREENE: Amazon, the bookselling site, allows people to write short reviews of books. And the best-selling novelist R.J. Ellroy was caught anonymously writing glowing reviews of his own work.

INSKEEP: Mr. Ellroy praised himself for his, quote, "magnificent genius."

GREENE: He even went on to write reviews of rival writers, deriding one book as "same old, same old."

INSKEEP: After being caught, Mr. Ellroy has apologized. And today, dozens of best-selling writers have placed a letter in Britain's Daily Telegraph denouncing the practice.

GREENE: They used their own names.

That's the business news on MORNING EDITION from NPR News, which is spectacular, according to the review I'm looking at. I'm David Greene.

INSKEEP: And I'm Steve Inskeep.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "MACK THE KNIFE") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.