ENTER LAUGHING

Some stage and TV comedians make it big on the printed page, some don't. Peter Borland, Ballantine executive editor, is betting that Margaret Cho's frank, offbeat, self-deprecating style will work well on the page. He has therefore bought a book based on Cho's one-woman hit off-Broadway show, I'm the One That I Want, paying a mid-six figures for world rights. The deal was made by Christopher Schelling at the Ralph Vicinanza agency, acting on behalf of Cho's L.A. manager, Karen Taussig at JTE. Cho, who has just launched a national tour of her stand-up act, will describe her rise and fall as the star of the TV sitcom All American Girl and her later eminence as a comic looking back on her screen life, and her problems with drugs and weight, with rue. Borland looks to publish in spring 2001.

In another six-figure deal ("We've been busy this week"), Borland preempted U.S. rights to two novels by brilliant young British author Hector Macdonald, which caused a big buzz when auctioned (to Michael Joseph) in London last week. The first is The Mind Game, which Borland describes as "a superb literary thriller"; the second is as yet untitled and unwritten. The manuscript was circulated here by Patrick Walsh at London's Christopher Little agency, who has also made sales in Germany, Italy and Holland.

OF MANY MUMMIES

The recent discovery of a burial site at an Egyptian oasis that may contain as many as 10,000 mummies, many of them in golden masks, seems made to order for a book, and that's what it is going to be next fall, courtesy of Abrams. The publisher's president, Paul Gottlieb, has bought English-language rights to the book in association with the American University in Cairo Press; French rights have gone to Abrams's sister company in Paris, Editions de La Martiniere, and Gottlieb will be selling other foreign rights at Frankfurt this week. The book, lavishly illustrated with about 250 color pictures, most of them never seen before, will be written by Dr. Zahi Hawass, the archeologist who uncovered the trove. The book will be called, as the site was immediately dubbed, The Valley of the Golden Mummies.

PUBLICIST TO PUBLICIST

Anita Diggs, who d s double service at Warner as publicist and editor, has signed a big book by a fellow publicist, Terrie Williams, for a "healthy" six figures for world rights. The book, purchased from Tanya McKinnon at Mary Evans, is A Plentiful Harvest: Creating Balance and Harmony Through the Seven Living Virtues, which Diggs describes as an inspirational title for black women. Williams, who is the leading African-American PR specialist in the country, with a list studded with stars and big corporations, aims to bring the principles of Kwanzaa to bear on life's problems. Warner president Jamie Raab will be selling foreign rights at Frankfurt.

THOSE INTERNET STOCKS

Henry Blodget, who at 33 is the senior Internet stock analyst for Merrill Lynch and whose prognostications helped Amazon.com's shares soar to the dizzy heights they once attained, is about to put his know-how into a book, and Random House is to be his publisher. Blodget was persuaded to set forth his understanding of the Internet revolution and its economic impact by agent Andrew Wylie, who approached him after seeing his TV spots and then offered around his book proposal. At the resulting auction, Random senior editor Jonathan Karp snagged it, for North American rights only. Meanwhile, Wylie will be selling foreign rights at Frankfurt this week.

THE HEMINGS SAGA

When Professor Annette Gordon-Reed published her Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings: An American Controversy with the University Press of Virginia two years ago, there was indeed a controversy -- fellow historians and critics who disliked the notion of our third president having children with a black mistress were enraged -- only to subside when DNA evidence showed she was right. Now Gordon-Reed is about to expand upon her research with a major study, The Hemingses of Monticello, for Norton executive editor Robert Weil, in which she will trace the family for 250 years (including the Jefferson relationship), portraying it as perhaps the most significant African-American family in our history. Norton's Jeannie Luciano will be selling foreign rights at Frankfurt.

SEX AND THE WEB

In accordance with a directive from editorial director Steve Ross to pay close attention to what's happening in mouseland, Crown editors have recently signed three books based on Web-originated material of the kind parents want their kids to be kept away from. The Diary of Nancy Chan, written by call girl Tracy Qwan, who d s a saucy column about her adventures on the job for Salon.com, will be, Ross told PW, "a sort of cross between Bridget Jones and TV's Sex and the City"; it will be edited by Doug Pepper, who bought it, rather improbably, from highbrow agent John Brockman (perhaps it was the Web connection). Qwan, who is unapologetic about her profession, will take time off to write the book, which will be a lightly fictionalized version of her experiences. Meanwhile, Crown's Ayeshe Pande has bought two anthologies based on saucy stuff appearing on the erotically edgy Nerve.com. They are Full Frontal Fiction: The Best of 'Nerve', which will collect choice erotica by the site's best authors, and The Naughty Bits, a collection of heated moments from great fiction through the ages, based on a Nerve.com feature. Agent for both was Neeti Madan at Sterling Lord Literistic.

"Hot Deals" will be in Frankfurt next week and therefore absent from the page. The new PW Rights Alert will continue to appear as an e-mail newsletter.