The result reads like an in depth business journal article (which figures, based on the authors background) by someone with really good connections. There are some interesting stories, some tidbits about what went on in the "fat year" (but not enough) and some amusing insights.
The book falls flat because Ledbetter fails to really explain what went on from the inside. He barely scratches the surface, constantly back tracking, covering himself (no surprise based on the seeming constant threats of libel suits during his tenure) and generally trying to play both sides. He wants to dig up the dirt, but he also wants to continue working in the publishing business. The result is like the version of events an adult would tell a child, the story is the same, the details just get glossed over.
Not the dot.com expose we have been waiting for.
It's not uncommon for me to read a good mystery or thriller in 1 or 2 sittings, but I've never had any desire to keep reading a non-fiction book(even a good non-fiction book) for an extended period of time, and in a funny way the epilogue did seem more like the end of a mystery, filling us in on what's happened to the characters since the Standard folded. I read the book (cover to cover) in a couple of hours. I've never read anything by James Ledbetter before, but I've got to figure he's a pretty good reporter, because he managed to capture my attention, and hold it till he was done with me, and in the end I wanted a lot more. Or course, it's possible I simply had nothing better to do.
It's not a 5 star book. It's not going to change my life, and I won't pass this around to all my friends saying "You must read this book!" But as someone who had never heard of the Industry Standard till I opened the book, I came away from it saying, "I want to know more..."
Also, from my point of view, the book was not about the magazine. It was about Ledbetter's journey through the magazine, often shifting from the magazine's rise and fall to humorous stories about his run ins with PR agents, details about stories they published, and tales of a party or event, that he may or may not have attended.
If you do have a chance to pick up this book, you might enjoy the result, not because of the lessons learned, but because the story is just too good to be fiction.
The Standard was of course an editorial operation, and this book focuses on the experiences of the editorial staff of which the author was a member. Since I was a part of the technical infrastructure team, I wasn't privy to many of the intricate details. Ledbetter's insights into the editorial staff's point-of-view are interesting and amusing; the basic happenings are all there (extravagant offsite meetings, reckless overspending, internal power struggles, and so on), but with some added first-person (or second-person) details.
I was hesitant to buy (and read) this book at first. Would I want to relive the days of The Standard? Would there be anything in there I didn't already know? Would it be interesting? For the most part, sure. It's not entirely a rehash of the life and death of one company; there are sprinklings of humorous (and Dilbert-ish) anecdotes that should be appealing to anybody who has dealt with the pressures of startups and shutdowns.