NEW YORK (CNN) - Some 17 years ago, Donald Trump took out a series of full-page ads in three papers --The New York Times, the Washington Post and the Boston Globe on some subject like foreign trade -- something, of course, that the real estate mogul was really expert on.

Everyone wondered, why the ads? Trump's crackerjack public relations firm suggested, sotto voce, that Trump might be thinking of running for President. After all, The Times and the Post were the two most politically influential papers in the country, and wasn't the Boston Globe read in New Hampshire, where the first Presidential primary takes place?

That didn't compute for me, especially since Trump was up to his eyeballs in debt and was skirting bankruptcy.

So I began to sniff around, and I finally found someone close to the situation who was willing to talk to me. You might be interested in knowing, he said, that The Donald has a book coming out in a few months, and this was a pretty good way to get some attention in advance. And so it was.

In fact, our own network, CNN, was boasting that Larry King would have an exclusive interview that evening with Trump, whom we touted as a potential Presidential candidate. I went on Moneyline a couple of hours before that program and poo-poohed the whole idea, which didn't exactly endear me to some of my colleagues -- and superiors -- in Atlanta.

But that P.R. blitz helped make that book a big seller, especially since Trump and his romantic escapades were in every gossip column and tabloid pages imaginable.

But that was then.

Now Trump is flying high, with buildings and hotels bearing his name all over the place, with a highly rated television show, "The Apprentice," that has made that ungracious phrase "You're fired!" a household word, and a new book out Tuesday, which is surely headed for the best-seller list.

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Listen closely, and you'll even hear the suggestion that he might be interested in running for President. Oh, yeah!

That book, titled, "Trump: How to Get Rich" -- and guess which word gets by far the biggest-sized type? -- is reportedly getting an astounding first printing of 500,000 copies.

The Donald is one of the great self-promoters of our time, but now he has a really big TV show to add to his self-acclaim. And he's making the most of it. I, for one, admire anyone who can re-invent himself as often, and as successfully, as Trump has done.

We may get tired of him before long, but I say, "Go, Donald, go."