DEAL OF THE WEEK
‘Dressmakers’ Causes International Stir
For six figures at auction, Sara Nelson at Harper bought North American rights to Lucy Adlington’s narrative history The Dressmakers of Auschwitz. Adlington, a British novelist and historian, sold the book to Hodder & Stoughton in the U.K., after a five-way auction brokered by Kate Shaw at the Shaw Agency. In a release, the Shaw Agency said the book “tells the powerful true story of the extraordinary young women and teenagers who were saved from the gas chambers to sew haute couture dresses at a tailoring studio within the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp.” Allison Hellegers at Stimola Literary Studio brokered the U.S. sale on behalf of the Shaw Agency, which also noted that the title has, to date, sold in 10 international deals. Dressmakers, which sold on proposal, is slated for a 2021 publication.
FROM THE U.S.
Filipovic to One Signal
For her new imprint at Simon & Schuster, One Signal Publishers, Julia Cheiffetz bought Jill Filipovic’s Ok Boomer, Let’s Talk. The author, represented in the world rights deal by Gail Ross at the Ross Yoon Agency, contributes a weekly column to CNN and is also a contributing opinion writer at the New York Times. The book, subtitled Dispatches from a Generational Divide, is, S&S said, “about the complicated and often contentious relationship between today’s largest adult generations, the millennials and the baby boomers.” Noting that millennials are poised to enter their prime years with far less wealth than their boomer forebears, the publisher elaborated that the book explores “the most pressing issues of our time, including crushing student debt, the gig economy, workplace culture, climate change, and America’s health-care crisis.”
YouTuber Sells ‘Planner’ to Gallery
Emma Chamberlain sold The Ideal Planner to Jeremie Ruby-Strauss at Gallery Books. The internet star, who came to prominence on YouTube vlogging about her life and random issues that fascinate her, has, per Gallery over eight million subscribers on YouTube (and over 19 million across all platforms). Chamberlain has associations with a number of fashion brands (including Louis Vuitton and the shopping app Dote), and the book, Gallery said, will be “an undated planner to help you keep your life in order your way.” Planner, which was sold in a world rights deal by UTA, is slated for August 2020.
HMH Nabs Broome’s Memoir
In a North American rights agreement, Moth-finalist Brian Broome sold his debut memoir to Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Rakia Clark preempted the book from Danielle Chiotti at Upstart Crow Literary. Chiotti said the memoir, titled Like This, “is a poetic and raw coming-of-age story about blackness, masculinity, and addiction in America’s rust belt.” Broome is an MFA candidate at the University of Pittsburgh.
Coomer Takes Up the ‘Habit’ at Running Press
For Running Press, Kristen Wiewora took North American rights to The Habit Trip: A Fill-in-the-Blank Journey to a Life on Purpose. Stacey Glick at Dystel, Goderich & Bourret LLC, who sold the book, described it as “an actionable choose-your-own-adventure for grown-ups.” Elaborating, Glick said the book, set for fall 2020, will help readers “identify which areas of their lives are working, which are not, and how they can plan to fix the ones that aren’t.” The author, Sarah Hays Coomer, is, Glick said, a “health coach, personal trainer, and ‘diet abolitionist.’ ”
Quarto Nabs Pic Book ‘Constitution’
Quarto Kids’ Georgia Amson-Bradshaw took world rights to the picture book We the People: The U.S. Constitution Explored and Explained, written by Evan Sargent and illustrated by Aura Lewis. Anne Moore Armstrong at the Bright Agency, who represented Lewis, said the book “takes the U.S. Constitution out of its historical glass box and presents it as a current, accessible, and living document.”
For more children’s and YA book deals, see our latest Rights Report.
