Penn State scandal hits new Paterno bio

Sometimes, launching a book amid a brewing scandal can drive sales, but the author of a new bio of Joe Paterno is suffering from the backlash against the former Penn State football coach. As fallout from the child sex abuse scandal continues, publisher Simon & Schuster is scaling back a  book tour for author Joe Posnanski, according to the New York Times.

Jonathan Karp, the publisher of Simon & Schuster, told the Times that a recent report outlining the actions of university officials had hurt the upcoming release of "Paterno." “It’s made people angrier at Joe Paterno. And that has made it a more difficult environment to publish a biography about Joe Paterno,” he said in the article.

The move comes as the NCAA fined Penn State $60 million, banned the football team from bowl games for four years, and vacated more than 100 wins under Paterno. Over the weekend, the university removed a statue of Paterno from the campus in the town of State College.

Former football coach Jerry Sandusky is awaiting sentencing after being convicted of sexually abusing 10 boys. A report by former FBI director Louis Freeh found that university officials -- including Paterno -- took inadequate action after being alerted to the problem. 

That's not the sort of atmosphere that lends itself to killer book sales -- unless "Paterno" had promised to show the untold story of the scandal. And the Freeh report already did that.