Apple CEO and co-founder Steve Jobs has handed his biographer a publicity bonanza to on the eve of the publication of his latest book.

Top science and tech publisher John Wiley says that Apple has pulled all Wiley titles from Apple's own retail stores in retaliation against a new biography of the billionaire fruitarian. Apple stores are telling customers that such popular titles as Mac for Dummies and Mac OS X Secrets are "out of stock".

The book iCon (Steve Jobs : The Greatest Second Act in the History of Business), by Jeffrey Young and William Simon [ Amazon.com - publisher's page ] is a follow-up to Young's 1987 bio The Journey Is the Reward, and is scheduled for publication at the end of May.

"It became increasingly clear that Apple was not happy with the publication of the book," a Wiley executive told the San Jose Mercury.

Five years ago Jobs tried to persuade Random House CEO Peter Olson to try and kill Alan Deutschman's The Second Coming of Steve Jobs, the Wall Street Journal reported at the time, and he succeeded in icing a feature in Vanity Fair (where Deutschman was a contributing editor) based on extracts from the book. More recently Apple has sued small web sites for leaking details of unreleased products, a move that if succesful, will ensure that no publisher large or small can discuss corporate strategy until the organization itself deems it can.

Despite almost turning over a billion dollars year, the Hoboken, NJ-based company remains a family-owned firm, and is standing by its authors. iCon had shot up to No.144 in Amazon.com's sales rankings today. ®

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