Eric Kampmann, president of Beaufort Books, published the one book other publishers wouldn’t touch. He talks about why he decided to bring O.J. Simpson’s controversial “If I Did It” to market.

By Janet Spavlik

One year ago, New York-based Beaufort Books was a small, independent, relatively unknown publisher working to reinvent itself after years of inactivity. By summer, it was caught in the middle of the media firestorm that is O.J. Simpson—catapulted to national recognition and the top of the New York Times Best-Seller List. Its newfound notoriety came in the immediate wake of the announcement that Beaufort would be doing what HarperCollins—and, it was rumored, all of the other major publishing houses—would not. Beaufort would publish the book “If I Did It,” the ghostwritten account of how Simpson would have murdered his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ron Goldman, who were both found dead in 1994.