The New Yorker publishes its first standalone e-book, ‘After 9/11′

The New Yorker has ventured into e-books with "After 9/11," a collection of articles on the terrorist attacks and their aftermath that have appeared in the weekly magazine.

Released as the New Yorker prepares its issue commemorating the 10th anniversary of September 11, 2001, the title marks the publication's first standalone e-book (although there have been electronic editions of its last several print anthologies).

"It's an appealing form for editors," New Yorker deputy editor Pam McCarthy told The Cutline in an email. "You can publish a book that's not as commercial as print publication demands, and you can put something together quickly when you want to."

That seems to be the logic driving the growing number of news organizations that are now self-producing e-books. The New York Times, the Washington Post, Time, ABC News and Vanity Fair--among others--have all dabbled in the format.

"After 9/11" is but one offering in a surfeit of 9/11 memorial coverage, but it's also one that will be hard to beat. A few dozen marquee bylines appear in the book, which includes vignettes from the magazine's trademark "Talk of the Town" section by Hendrik Hertzberg, John Updike, Jonathan Franzen, Susan Sontag, Calvin Trillin and George Packer; deeply reported features by Adam Gopnik, Seymour Hersh, Jane Mayer, Jon Lee Anderson and Steve Coll; criticism by Malcolm Gladwell; and fiction by Don DeLillo. It also includes Nicholas Schmidle's recent account of the raid that killed Osama bin Laden.

The book costs $7.99 per download on the Amazon Kindle and Barnes & Noble Nook. No advertising is included.

"We will put this out there and, yes, if it finds an audience, we'll do more," McCarthy said.