The last few days haven't been easy ones for David Letterman, naturally. Ironically, though, the scandal may end up benefiting Letterman's right-hand man, Paul Shaffer. The Late Show's longtime band leader's new memoir, We'll Be Here For the Rest of Our Lives: A Swingin' Show-biz Saga, officially goes on sale tomorrow. And while the "candid" book that takes readers "behind-the-scenes" doesn't contain any revealing info about Letterman—or address any of his dalliances with junior staffers—the book is selling briskly and has secured the No. 1 spot in Amazon's TV category. [Amazon]

• Time Inc. is "not for sale," says Time Warner boss Jeff Bewkes. [DF]
• Meanwhile, Time Inc., Condé Nast, and Hearst are looking to team up and create a "Hulu for magazines." Another winning idea, clearly. [FT, ATD]
• Miramax is fast approaching non-existence. Disney, Miramax's parent, is cutting 50 jobs at the company, leaving it with just 20 employees. [NYT]
• The pros and cons to a marriage between Comcast and NBC. [AdAge]
• The Washington Post and Bloomberg are launching a joint news service. [AP]
• TV Guide dismissed several execs yesterday, including its publisher. [NYP]
• Former Warner Bros. and Yahoo! chief Terry Semel was interested in buying the Nets, but he couldn't compete with Russian mogul Mikhail Prokhorov. [P6]
• Will the David Letterman drama ultimately hurt the show's ratings or send skittish advertisers running for the exits? That's unlikely, say observers. [THR]
• The cover of Sarah Palin's forthcoming (and already best-selling) memoir, Going Rogue, has been revealed. Try to contain your excitement. [AP]

Lynn Vincent, the woman who is writing a book called Going Rogue "by" Sarah Palin, sure can pick her co-writers. She's written books before with a general who kills "demons" for God and a guy who finds interracial dating "revolting."

Mob princess Victoria Gotti ran into a bit of financial trouble a few months ago and almost lost control of her gaudy mansion on Long Island, as you may recall. We're guessing it was the stack of bills piling up on her white marble coffee table that led her to sign a deal earlier this year to pen a book about her, uh, rather interesting life, especially since she'd backed out of a deal to write a similar "tell-all memoir" a couple of years earlier in order "protect" her family's "reputation." But the financial crisis changed all that and Gotti's book, This Family of Mine, arrived in bookstores this week.

Oh, god, Sarah Palin named her terrible book Going Rogue. She literally did this thing. It is a reference to when she lost the election for John McCain.

Ever had a good laugh over those "this is your brain on drugs" commercials? Well, stop. It's no laughing matter, buddy, because now scientists can prove that cocaine changes your brain forever. But that's nothing compared to video games.

• Barack Obama's appearance on David Letterman's show last night helped the Late Night host score his second-highest ratings ever. [NYT, WP]
• Dan Rather scored a couple of victories in his suit against CBS: A motion by the network to dismiss the case was denied by a judge; and Rather's lawyers will be permitted to question Viacom chairman Sumner Redstone. [Reuters]
• Yesterday, activists handing out fake copies of the Post outside its offices were detained by cops. Today, the paper says it was "flattered" by it. [NYP]
• Book deals: Jenny Sanford, the estranged wife of South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford, is writing "inspirational memoir" for Random House. And Andrew Young, an aide to former Senator John Edwards, has landed a deal with St. Martin's Press' Thomas Dunne Books to publish his tell-all memoir.
• In an effort to keep more viewers tuned in, ABC plans to reduce—yes, reduce—the number of commercials in the premieres of its new shows. [LAT]
• Fox won the opening night of the fall season, a first for the network. [THR]

The people you barely know—your dry cleaner, for example, or the guy you regularly see sweating next to you on the treadmill at the gym—are "consequential strangers," and they're actually important to your mental well-being, say the authors of a new book. According to Melinda Blau, co-author of Consequential Strangers: The Power of People Who Don't Seem to Matter... But Really Do, there's a "relationship continuum" from strangers to besties, and a good chunk of people fall into the middle-ground. Many of those 800 plus friends you've racked up on Facebook? Yep, they're consequential strangers. As are the countless somewhat-familiar people we see on a regular basis, all of whom supposedly "make us feel grounded in the world."

• Rumor has it Condé Nast isn't going to shutter several of its money-losing magazines like Details and Teen Vogue, after all. But the budget review that's taken place in recent weeks seems to have "scared fiscal responsibility into some of the highest-rolling titles at the glitzy empire." This means Graydon Carter won't be making it to London or Milan Fashion Week, sadly. [NYP]
• Irving Kristol, the godfather of neo-conservatism, is dead at 89. [AP]
• Oprah has picked the next big best-seller. The latest pick for her book club is a set of short stories by Uwem Akpa called Say You're One of Them. [NYDN]
• After a 72-year run, Guiding Light's final episode aired today. [Reuters]
• CNBC has canceled Dennis Kneale's 8pm show on the network. [NYO]
• The Emmy Awards take place this Sunday. Who's going to win? If you watched last year's telecast, you may already have the answers. [WP]

Nine short months ago, employees at Random House were silently urinating in their knickers after a new CEO seemed poised to drastically cut budgets. Now, they're poppin bottles. What changed? Dan Brown!

Your sneers mean nothing: Dan Brown's The Lost Symbol has already sold 1 million copies.

• As expected, ratings for Jay Leno's new show are falling fast. [THR]
• Bloomberg LP appears to now be in the lead to buy BusinessWeek. [NYP]
• Dan Brown's The Lost Symbol sold 1 million copies its first day. [NYT]
• Don't try to talk to Vogue publisher Tom Florio about what changes are in store for the mag now that those McKinsey consultants have finished their review. (He's not talking about it.) Meantime, McKinsey's final report will be handed over to Condé Nast's management next week. [NYO, WWD]
• Fox News boss Roger Ailes collected $24 million in compensation last year, which is $2 million more than his boss, Rupert Murdoch, took home. [BW]
• Jay-Z has his 11th No. 1 album. That puts him ahead of Elvis Presley as the solo artist with the most chart-toppers. But he's still behind the Beatles. [LAT]

• So how did Jay Leno's new show do? He hit it out of the park ratings-wise, roping in an estimated 18 million viewers. The reviews were all pretty lousy, though, so don't be surprised if it's all downhill from here. [AdAge, LAT, THR]
• The sale of BusinessWeek: Bruce Wasserstein has dropped out as a potential acquirer of the struggling mag. And it's cutting 20% of its staff. [BW, NYT]
• ABC News has apologized to the White House for Nightline anchor Terry Moran's tweet about Obama calling Kanye West a "jackass." [LAT]
• Speaking of the White House, Barack Obama will be David Letterman's guest on Monday night; it's the first time a sitting president has done the show. [NYT]
• Oprah's season premiere scored big thanks to Whitney Houston. [Wrap]
• The House of Harvey has sustained another blow: Harvey Weinstein's 70 percent stake in the home-video distributor Genius Products, once worth as much as $400 million, is now pretty much worthless. [NYP]
• Speaking of the film mogul, The Weinstein Co. picked up the rights to A Single Man, designer Tom Ford's debut film, at the Toronto Film Festival. [THR]

Hooray! Today you can finally buy Dan Brown's The Lost Symbol, a new interactive novel about a heroic professor with a mullet who fights Catholics and Masons. It will save publishing, and ruin Washington DC.

Bush speechwriters keep writing books, as if in an attempt to convince us that despite their former job, they are indeed able to read and write above a fourth-grade level. The latest: Matt Latimer says Bush didn't like Palin!

• It looks like there's a new frontrunner to take over BusinessWeek. Mayor Bloomberg's media company, Bloomberg LP, has bypassed Bruce Wasserstein as the leading contender to take over the McGraw-Hill-owned mag. [NYP]
• After close to three decades at ABC News, John Stossel is leaving the network to join Fox News and Fox Business Channel. [FNC, TVN]
• Not all magazines are closing down or trimming operations. Cesar Millan and IMG have launched a title for dog owners called Cesar's Way. [WSJ]
• There's been an editorial shakeup at O, The Oprah Magazine. [NYP, WWD]
• Will this season be the last for Oprah Winfrey's daytime talk show? [NYDN]
• Graydon Carter appears to have been granted a pass. The Vanity Fair editor reports he hasn't been forced to sit down with the flock of cost-cutting McKinsey consultants now prowling the halls of Condé Nast. [NYO]
• A judge has tossed out a lawsuit by Missy Chase Lapine, the author who claims Jessica Seinfeld ripped off her cookbook last year. [AP]
• According to the Wall Street Journal, "Bonnet books," or Amish love stories, are "a booming new subcategory of the romance genre." Who knew? [WSJ]

The New York Times asked New York Times readers—a wildly unrepresentative group of subway riders, btw—what they're reading on the subway. It's the same stuff you read, duh.

When the beloved geek comic xkcd finally signed a book deal, it involved no profits and no bookstores. Now its author is taking a similarly unconventional approach to philanthropy. Sorry, poor children of Laos!

Jesus Christ, do you have any idea how much money there is to be made in the Amish porn business? Lots. And by "Amish porn" we mean "Devilish books in which a lady feels a certain tingle beneath her bonnet."

• Tyra Banks is launching a web-based magazine. Tyra: Beauty Inside & Out will feature an "audio 'manifesto' that asks readers to dream big, ignore the haters, celebrate uniqueness and seek the beauty in everything." [WWD]
• James Patterson has signed a 17-book deal with his publisher, Hachette. And all 17 of them will arrive in bookstores before the end of 2012. [AP]
• All the competition online appears to be taking a toll on the Zagat guide series. Sales are down and the company has been laying off staff. [NYP]
• It was a mixed bag for Hollywood studios hoping for a big summer box office. Revenue was up 2 percent, but attendance fell 2 percent, too. [NYT]
• The Final Destination and Inglourious Bastards came in at No. 1 and 2 at the box office this weekend, beating out a handful of newcomers. [LAT]
• Following in the footsteps of the Wall Street Journal and New York Times, USA Today is the latest newspaper to launch an online "wine club." [E&P]