Tuesday, January 06, 2009

Laura B. Gets $1.6M

The New York Post -- that bastion of journalistic integrity and rectitude -- is reporting that Laura Bush's one-book deal with Scribner's for a memoir is pegged at $1.6 million.

Their source? "One well-placed publishing source." (Though another source, placed either less well or more well or precisely as well -- the Post doesn't specify -- thinks it could be a little more.)

That's about what I would have expected -- you can't offer a first lady less than seven figures, and the "point-six" implies some jockeying for position, or a possible auction. Bush's eventual book still might not earn out -- that's the risk every book runs -- but it'll have a better chance than those overpriced Clinton tomes of earlier this decade.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Andrew,

Wondered if you saw the Jan. 5th entry on Ed Gorman's blog. I'd be interested in your take on it.

http://newimprovedgorman.blogspot.com/

Jeff P.

Andrew Wheeler said...

Jeff P.: I hadn't seen that -- thanks for the link.

I certainly do agree that something -- and it's probably the word-processing revolution -- has brought many more bad novels out into the light of day than ever before. (I'm fond of saying that more people want to write a novel than read one these days.)

I'm not as sure that the audience has shrunk -- not for books as a whole. As always, the audience is moving from one subgenre to another -- historical romances are hot these days after being in the doldrums in the '90s, urban fantasy is very hot, and foreign-set thrillers seem to be cooling off -- but it's generally looked to me like a steady state or slight growth.

That's leaving aside the last year, when a lot of people started sitting on their hands instead of buying many things -- but that's purely because of the economy. (I bet library circulation figures are up.)

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