To launch Peter Golenbock’s controversial 7:TheMickey Mantle Novel, Lyons Press is doing an all-out promotional blitz centered on New York. It's already spent $100,000 on consumer advertising, running full-page ads in the New York Post last week and in the New York Times yesterday (the Times ad alone cost $56,000). Lyons is also employing mobile billboards on the street and street teams handing out key chains and postcards; there’s even a rap group involved, all around Wall Street and Times Square.

There's only one thing missing—the book.

Today is pub date and at the Barnes & Noble store in Union Square, there wasn’t a copy to be found, although a clerk reported there were eight on backorder. There were no books at other Manhattan B&N stores either. It's unclear just how widespread the problem is, but it's not confined to New York: a call to the Lincoln Park B&N in downtown Dallas (Mantle’s hometown) yielded the same response: none in stock. B&N corporate officials were unavailable for comment.

Lyons Press picked up the Mickey Mantle book from HarperCollins/Regan Books in January, after the firing of Judith Regan and subsequent cancellation of the book. The press announced a 250,000-copy first printing and a $150,000 promotion/publicity budget for the salacious tome that helped trigger Regan’s dismissal in December. Inger Forland, marketing director at Lyons had no explanation for why at least some outlets of the nation's largest bookselling chain had no copies of the book.

"I couldn’t really tell you," said Forland. "I know that the Borders response to the book has been stronger than B&N."

Indeed, the Borders at 100 Wall Street had 27 copies as of today. At the nearby Shakespeare’s on Whitehall Street, assistant manager Mike Merlino told PW, "I do have a couple of copies in stock. We do work in the Topps [baseball card] building so maybe it will spark something."

The publisher's major league investment in the book is looking like far from a safe bet. The baseball season, which just began, is a long grind; the bookselling season, however, can be short; those who don’t produce soon are shipped out; and showing up late doesn’t help.