Wall Street Journal, ever the business paper, is making good on that by demanding royalties from books their reporters write based on research they originally did for the paper. The staff find the policy "ridiculous." But even if print is dying, book publishing is relatively viable. Journalists can make a lot more from a best-selling book than from reporting on metro education stories. So it's hardly ridiculous for newspaper to want a piece of it. Consider the success of New York Times trend story heartthrob Warren St. John.

Charla Krupp recently published How Not to Look Old, which was mentioned in Time magazine's article, "How Not to Look Old on the Job." They didn't mention she was married to Richard Zoglin, says Portfolio. But some say this is not a big deal?

Since I read Portfolio for my business news, I never know what the hell is going on in business. Thankfully there's this slideshow on Google Docs, which explains the origins of the subprime mortgage collapse (putting the blame on pretty much everyone working in a financial institution). Someone find this guy so he can explain brokered conventions. [UPDATE: If you still don't get the subprime crisis, the commenter ADismalScience further explains it in the thread below, here, here and here.]

Michael Musto tells us how to be a "nightclub star" in his latest Village Voice blog! His advice is quite thrifty: "Track down the person with the free drink tickets and tell them you love their outfit," and "wear your absolutely shittiest coat. This way you can just drape it on a banquette rather than check it (thereby saving three bucks). Better yet, flirt with the DJ—no doubt named John—and he'll let you leave it in his booth. " Or do what I do: wear a cheap, ridiculous wig, and surround yourself with crazies. [La Daily Musto]

Oh noes!! You've gone and hurt Heidi Montag's feelings. It seems that when you said nasty things about the video for her new single "Higher" the reality star, of The Hills fame, cried herself to sleep. But don't worry, boyfriend/manager Spencer Pratt comforted her by saying, "This is just part of being an artist. If it were easy, everyone would be a pop star." Aww that's true! Even though they kind of tried to do it easily by making a video which they readily admit took 20 minutes to shoot and cost them zero dollars. Either way, I guess she'll be crying all the way to the bank, because "Higher" is number 7 on this week's iTunes pop charts. That many people want a freak show? Well then how come Paris Hilton's new, terrible movie The Hottie & the Nottie did so abysmally at the box office last weekend?

Will more than one publisher fight over your book, aiming to be the highest bidder? O, the dream! Remember, the LOLCats book went to auction. The "very nice literary agent" over at Pub Rants explains the process.

Ever notice how Scores, the standard bearer of Manhattan strip clubs, gets such good coverage from Page Six? Not just the various career moves of the club's leaders, like today's item about former frontman Lonnie Hanover's jump to Rick's Cabaret, but all those celeb sightings in the club. Lindsay Lohan dances! Jean-Claude Van Damme gets beat up! Dennis Quaid loses his credit card!

It's comforting to know that no matter how much money you make—like, if you work at a hedge fund, for instance—you will still be hanging out in the same rotten Times Square bars, drinking Coors Light. This is how I met "Charlie" The Hedge Fund Manager and tried my best to learn how they work, in order to make the Real Money some day. Here is his advice: "You don't hafta study the European markets, you just gotta buy a bunch of good stocks and hold onto them." Advice: "Some guys work long hours, but not me." Finally, the moment of reckoning: "I don't know what I'm doing here!" he moaned, looking out onto Eighth Avenue, where some dude was puking in the middle of the street. "I'm a fuckin' billionaire."

We've been asked to clarify an earlier post about jailed wild-girl exploiter Joe Francis, who managed not to make himself look good in the New York Times Styles section this weekend in spite of being given every opportunity to do so. We'd suggested that publicist Mike Sitrick was responsible for the good placement—but 5W Public Relations flack Ronn Torrosian begs to differ: "please call gawker let them know you rep him not mike that got him the piece in NY times. Fix it and let him know," reads an email from Ronn's assistant Katrina, forwarded to us (on purpose? Maybe!) by Ronn.

It was freshman year of college and I'd found myself in a fratboy's bedroom, as we all did at some point. Suddenly, I spied a copy of the facebook of incoming freshmen—they used to be made of paper, did you know?—and before the room's occupant could snatch it from my hands, I was flipping through what turned out to be a complicatedly coded document. Some photos of girls were circled in yellow highlighter, some in blue. Some were both yellow and blue. Some girls' photos had big Xs through them! "What's this about?" I asked Mr. Psi Upsilon. "Oh, uh... that's how we decide who to invite to parties. Heh," he admitted. I was thinking about this the other day when an invite list for a fancy party somehow fell into my inbox, and each name had coded entries like: "[Starry McTvstarlet] UNDER30/CUTE/ONAIR/300/[Starlet] BFriend" and [Modelly McExwife] 300/600/LI/MODEL/FASHION/LITERARY. Whoa! Was this standard industry practice? And what did the codes mean?

After your negotiations and your cab ride to the corner of 63rd and 2nd, you'll notice that the apartment building in which you'll apparently be having sex with a prostitute is also the home to a noted modern dance center. Perhaps you'll wonder if indeed the lady in question could be a part-time student at the school! That will turn out not to be the case. Through the window, the doorman might peer at you queerly. He's totally is in on what is going on. You'll call the number you were given and you will be told an apartment number. When you pass by, the doorman will be listening to death metal on an iPod mini.

Whenever two adults in New York exchange sex for money, each commits a Class B misdemeanor. So one might think it would be difficult to procure a sex worker. It takes about three minutes. The website of one local spot is your basic HTML slapdash job. It says that "they" would like to be with you very much and uses lots of exclamation points. There's a gallery of women, young and mostly blond and carelessly dressed. Most of the women look like they could be in The Bangles, a bit more on the side of Debbi Peterson than Susanna Hoffs.

Rupert Murdoch has done his part to ensure the ouster of Australian prime minister John Howard, who's been toiling as the sad prison-island's leader since time immemorial. In a canny feat, Murdoch sent New York Post editor Col Allan out to Scores with Kevin Rudd—he's the opposition leader down in Australia, and is now expected to win the 2007 election. "Mr Rudd admitted visiting Scores and said he had been too drunk to remember much of what had happened," says the Guardian. Then Rudd got reprimanded for manhandling strippers and got booted. For Australian men, this is like scoring the winning goal of a soccer match or shooting the biggest kangaroo or something. He will now receive nearly all of the heterosexual male vote. How can we tell it's a counterintuitive and sophisticated campaign to manage the election? The trip to Scores happened four years ago and is just being revealed now—in Murdoch's papers. Good work, Rupe!

Yesterday, the New York Times ran an op-ed piece by a 24-year-old Brooklyn lad named Ben Dolnick, about his summer working at the Central Park Zoo. Dolnick's first novel, Zoology, was published last month, and it's about an 18-year-old boy from Chevy Chase, Md. (where Dolnick is from, too!) who goes to work at the Central Park Zoo. In a wee review, the New Yorker wrote that "Dolnick seems to share some of his protagonist's immaturity, but he demonstrates an engaging lightness of touch." The book seems to be—we haven't read it—a pretty slight coming-of-age novel in which the protagonist barely comes of age. (It's blurbed by Jonathan Safran Foer, but still! UPDATE: We have learned that they went to the same D.C. private school.) Dolnick's doing pretty well for himself! It probably helps that Dolnick's mom, Lynn Dolnick, is Arthur "Pinch" Sulzberger Jr.'s cousin. Also, she sits on the board of the New York Times Company. Not that the Times, which seems to get its panties in a bunch about conflicts of interest and disclosures and the like, mentioned that. But there's more of this web to untangle.