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Hot Deals: 'Falling Leaves' a Windfall for Wiley
Judy Quinn -- 7/20/98
"It was a wily move," said Wiley director of domestic subsidiary rights Suzanne Taylor Starace, who couldn't resist wordplay in describing her strategy in auctioning paperback rights to Adeline Yen Mah's Falling Leaves: The True Story of an Unwanted Chinese Daughter, a hardcover published by the house in March. Starace, who came to Wiley a few months ago, boldly set a significant house floor of $500,000 for the paperback, and HarperCollins and Broadway ended up going to her auction. Broadway editor Suzanne Oaks emerged the winner, with a $530,000 bid, of what Starace described as a "very thoughtful, measured auction" of three rounds over two days. The paperback is just the latest build for Mah, a Chinese-born doctor now living in California who first found U.K. agent Toby Eady through her friend (and Eady author) Jung Chang. Earlier, Mah enjoyed international success with the book via an initial Penguin U.K. and Commonwealth publication. In this country, Eadie originally struck out with U.S. publishers, to the point that when Ike Williams of Palmer &Dodge took over representation, "there were only a few publishers who hadn't seen the manuscript," he told PW. Wiley editor Hannah Lane finally acquired the book for what is, in retrospect, a bargain low-five-figure advance. Thanks to good reviews and media and promotion in part fueled by the house and freelance publicists hired by the wealthy Mah, the hardcover to date has an almost clean sell-through of 75,000 copies, and an additional 25,000 printing is planned. The U.S. sales helped Starace clinch some late-in-the-game book club rights (to BOMC and QPB as alternate selections), and Williams is finalizing a six-figure deal with NBC for a four-hour miniseries, with producers Janet Yang and Lisa Henson already attached.

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