Virtual Thumbing Is Amazon's Latest Marketing Ploy

Amazon.com has never managed to turn a profit but it has pioneered some interesting internet marketing techniques. Its latest is "virtual thumbing" which places 20 pages of a book onto its website so that interested browsers can read parts of a chapter, the index, the cover art and back cover "blurbs." Their excerpt from our book Toxic Sludge Is Good For You features our story of how Ketchum PR, Edelman PR, The California Raisin Advisory Board, Elizabeth Whelan's American Council on Science and Health, The U.S. Department of Agriculture and former Surgeon General C. Everett Koop all teamed up behind the scenes to attack an important book on pesticide contaminated food.