TRY ELSEWHERE FIRST

That seems to be the motto these days when attempting to get strong literary fiction published in the U.S. We have just heard (not for the first time) of a book that made the rounds of no fewer than 25 American publishers over a period of 18 months before being snapped up in London and other foreign parts -- and only then being seen as publishable back home. The book in question is called Music for the Third Ear and was loyally shopped around by a prime believer in it, Deborah Schneider at Gelfman Schneider. She describes it as an extraordinarily strong and moving novel about a Norwegian couple who take in a pair of Bosnian refugees, and the impact this has on all of them. The author, Susan Schwartz Senstad, is an American married to a Norwegian and living in Norway. After Schneider had tried in vain to interest an American publisher, she gave it to a London colleague, Jonny Geller at Curtis Brown, who within two days received a preemptive bid from editor John Sadler at Anchor (part of Transworld). Sales to Holland and Norway followed, and at the recent Frankfurt fair word of the book reached the ear of George Witte at Picador. He set out to acquire it immediately on his return, and it will be edited by Regan Arthur at Picador for publication here next fall. By then it will have been out in London for at least six months.

BILLING HOURS

Lawyers who write novels can sometimes better their lawyerly earnings, and that's the case with D.W. Buffa, for whom agent Wendy Sherman has just concluded a seven-figure world rights deal with Warner for his next two books. Sherman, currently at Aaron Priest but about to go off on her own, claims this one as her own deal. She came to know Buffa's work when she was at Henry Holt (where his first two books, The Defense andThe Prosecution, were hits in 1997 and 1999, respectively). "Amazingly, he wasn't agented, so I stepped in," she said. The first book under the new deal, signed with Warner's Jamie Raab and Rob McMahonŠ and to be edited by the latter, will be The Judgment, set for publication next fall, with the second to follow a year later. Both will involve Buffa's series hero, Oregon lawyer Joseph Antonelli.

PARDON MY FRENCH

We've heard of some big movie deals being made before a book was sold in the U.S. But we've never heard of one for a manuscript that wasn't even in English, and had Hollywood producers scrambling for dictionaries or French speakers to see just what they were buying. That was the case, however, with If Only It Were True, an upcoming first novel by French architect Marc LevyŠ which was bought by Steven Spielberg's DreamWorks for $2 million. According to VarietyŠ every studio except Warner and Paramount bid on the property, which is being published in Paris by Laffont next spring. They were excited mostly by an English-language précis that Paris-based Laffont editor Susanna Lea circulated, which certainly sounded high-concept, and which actually said, "A novel that reads like a film." Briefly, it is the story of a man who discovers a beautiful woman in his apartment who is visible only to him. Lea told our Paris man, Herb Lottman, that she had sold book rights in the U.K. to Fourth Estate, because of an old relationship with that company, but was just beginning to auction U.S., German and Italian rights. Bob Bookman at CAA organized the movie sale.

GOD IN THE HEAD

What happens in your head when you pray to God or meditate about Him? Two neuroscientists at the University of Pennsylvania, professors Andrew Newberg and Eugene D'Aquili, have been conducting research that measures the brain patterns of people meditating and at prayer. The results, in a book to be called Why God Won't Go Away, to be written with Vince Rause, has been sold for a strong six-figure advance to Leslie Meredith at Ballantine. Meredith declares it is a study of ways in which people are "wired for God," and finds it an ideal blend of science and spirituality. She bought world rights, excluding British Commonwealth, from Arielle Eckstut of James Levine Communications, working with Kitty Farmer.

'NUMBER ONE' FOR THE '90s

In the mid-1980s, those go-go years, Robert Ringer burst upon the book world with two self-published books that were later taken on by Fawcett and sold millions of copies: Winning Through Intimidation and Looking Out for Number One. Now Ringer is back, with agent Jane Dystel and a new book, tentatively titled Rational Living in an Irrational World, which Jane just sold to Wendy Hubbard at Jeremy Tarcher, an imprint at Penguin Putnam. Hubbard sees it as an updated version of Number One, tailored to this rather more easygoing time, and Dystel says the author is planning a new series of books. The deal was for world rights, and the book should be ready for next fall.

SHORT TAKES

The daughter of a famous father, Bliss Broyard, who published a well-received book of stories with Knopf earlier this year, is doing a memoir of her father, Anatole, called Mixed Blood, and Little, Brown's Michael Pietsch has bought this, and an unwritten novel, in a two-book six-figure deal from Jennifer Rudolph Walsh at Virginia Barber.... One of the more eagerly anticipated books being talked about in Frankfurt hasn't been written yet: it's a planned nonfiction book by novelist Robert Stone, his first, about the '60s, a decade that helped shape him and his work. It was commissioned by an old friend, Dan Halpern at HarperCollins's Ecco Press imprint, and Stone's agent, Neal Olson at Donadio & Olson, helped clear the deal with Stone's regular publisher, Houghton Mifflin.