Fourteen-year-old country music sensation LeAnn Rimes, who had been in negotiations with HarperCollins for a book-and-CD Christmas Box-type book, has signed what is being described as a solid six-figure deal-that could become seven figures -- with Doubleday editor-in-chief Pat Mulcahy. The book, without a CD, will be a Christmas 1997 release. Authors &Artists Group Inc. president Al Lowman, who served as agent for Rimes, told PW that a deal for an audio of the book, which will likely be narrated by Rimes and include an original song, is pending. Rimes is also the subject of at least two instant paperbacks: Dream Come True: The LeAnn Rimes Story (Ballantine) and LeAnn Rimes: Teen Country Queen (Bantam Doubleday Dell Books for Young Readers), both with a May pub date but shipping this month and on sale in April.

Rimes, who just won a Grammy Award as Best New Artist and whose debut and follow-up album hold top spots on the Billboard charts, will write Holiday in Your Heart, a close-to-home story about a young country singer who leaves the road at Christmas to visit an ill grandmother. Her collaborator on the story will be Tom Carter, an Authors &Artists client and a writer who worked with country music stars Reba McEntire and George Jones on their books. While the story seems ripe for a TV adaptation along the lines of The Christmas Box or The Christmas Tree -- Holiday in the Heart's heroine is advised by an older, wiser country music star, which could lead to some interesting casting possibilities -- no deal has been set.

To CD or Not CD?
Rimes's project has had a tortured history. Variety reported that ReganBooks publisher Judith Regan, who sources say had been pursuing Rimes for a three-book deal, had signed the singer for $1.3 million. Earlier this month, Regan referred inquiries to HarperCollins editorial director Diane Reverand, who was negotiating with Lowman on the project. Lowman told PW that the deal fell apart because the idea of having an original-song CD attached to the book proved not to be viable. Reverand told PW, "We're sad to lose LeAnn."

Not having a CD was no problem for Doubleday, which had earlier passed on doing Laura Esquivel's The Law of Love in part because the house didn't want to get into the expense and manual labor required for a CD attachment (Crown picked up the project). "I think there's interest in her beyond her music and I'm not in the business of being a music publisher," Mulcahy told PW. She plans a 350,000 first printing for Rimes's book, "not that outrageous, when you consider that her first album sold 4.6 million copies."

A test of a country music star book-and-CD package will instead be Ballantine's October release of Forever Yours, Faithfully, an autobiography of singer Lorrie Morgan that will include a CD of songs, including a single exclusive to the book CD. Ballantine editor-in-chief Judith Curr told PW she hopes to get that song on the charts, and the book, which will retail for $25, on the bestseller list. "You have to try different things to sell a book nowadays," she told PW.