Questions raised over Zeman book billboards

Billboards advertising a new book of interviews with President Miloš Zeman have appeared throughout the country in recent days in a campaign that experts say is unusual for a book, iDnes.cz reported. Journalist Pavel Mandys, who writes about literature, said publishers normally could not afford such advertising, while Lukáš Růžička of publishing house Paseka said firms in the business would only use billboards if they thought they could sell books with a large print run.

The president’s book We’ll Manage to Govern Ourselves has come out in an initial print run of 7,500 and a representative of publishers Olympia refused to divulge what the billboard campaign had cost the company.

Mr. Zeman is standing for a second term in a presidential election in January.