Hat Trick for Sullivan
Basic executive editor Tim Sullivan, who joined the house in September from Portfolio, made several buys last week. First, he acquired world rights to Grant McCracken's Chief Culture Officer via Kate Lee at ICM. Anthropologist and consultant McCracken will argue for the invention of a new office, the CCO, the one person who can guide a corporation through the increasingly important maze of modern culture. Pub date is fall 2009.
Sullivan also bought Simon Head's Unexpert Systems: I.T. and the Making of a Digital Dystopia via Zoe Pagnamenta, who sold world rights. This is an exploration of how expert systems, databases and workplace control systems may have improved our efficiency, but may also be turning us into unimaginative cogs in a 21st century industrial machine. Head, Fellow of the Rothermere American Institute at Oxford, writes on economics for the New York Review of Books.
Barry Nalebuff and Ian Ayres are also moving to Basic; Sullivan acquired their The Scaredy Cat's Guide to Smarter Investing in a world rights deal with Glen Hartley. This counterintuitive guide is based on a new understanding of how to diversify risk over time. Yale professors Nalebuff and Ayres are the authors of Why Not? How to Use Everyday Ingenuity to Solve Problems Big and Small, published by Harvard Business School Press in 2003. Pub date for the new book is 2010.
Trifecta for Fairbank
It was also a productive week for agent Sorche Elizabeth Fairbank, who negotiated three new deals. First, she sold four books in a new series by Matthew Frederick to Rick Wolff at Grand Central, who preempted world rights with a six-figure offer. Based on Frederick's 101 Things I Learned in Architecture School, published last year by the MIT Press, the first in the series will be 101 Things I Learned in Film School, ...in Fashion School, ...in Culinary Arts School and ...in Business School. Described as a cross between Life's Little Instruction Book and Cliffs Notes, the books each comprise 101 two-page spreads containing a lesson from an expert in the field and an accompanying illustration by Frederick. The author's original architecture school volume has 97,500 copies in print and has so far been translated into nine languages.
Harper senior editor Adam Korn won out over a number of bidders for Rocco Wachman's How to Be a Cowboy; Fairbank sold world rights. Wachman, host and star of Country Music Television's Cowboy U, will, through instruction, recipes, interviews, photographs and trivia, explore the many facets of the cowboy life in the 21st century. Topics covered include riding a bull, dancing a Texas two-step, campfire cooking, the cowboy uniform and the three Rs: ranching, roping and rodeo. Matthew Pellegrini will co-write, and Harper Paperbacks will publish in early 2010.
At FSG, Courtney Hodell bested three other bidders for a debut story collection by Miroslav Penkov titled Bulgari; Fairbank sold world rights. Penkov's seven stories and one novella describe one of Europe's oldest countries, covering centuries of Bulgarian history. Penkov is the winner of the Eudora Welty prize in fiction; his story “Buying Lenin” was included in this year's Best American Short Stories.
Inside Goldman
Palgrave publisher Airie Stuart bought world rights to Money Is Always in Fashion by June Breton Fisher, Henry Goldman's granddaughter and one of only two surviving Goldmans. Fisher's account of Henry Goldman's life and financial empire will describe the origins of Goldman Sachs and reveal what's beneath the mystique of the Wall Street giant. Victoria Skurnick at Levine Greenberg made the sale; no pub date yet.
Wiley Legends
Stephen Power at John Wiley has acquired the 12th book by Jack Nicklaus, Putting My Way, to be written with Ken Bowden; Bob Diforio made the North American rights sale. This hardcover how-to, fully illustrated by Jim McQueen, will cover every element of getting the ball in the hole, both mental and physical; according to Nicklaus, this lifetime's reflection on the art of putting will be his last book. Nicklaus's and Bowden's previous titles, including Golf My Way, have sold in the millions in some 20 languages. Wiley will pub next October.
Elsewhere at Wiley, Hana Lane won a best-bid auction for David Evanier's Keeper of the Flame: A Biography of Tony Bennett; Andrew Blauner sold world rights. This first detailed biography of the singer will be published in 2011 to coincide with his 85th birthday. Evanier, a recipient of the Aga Khan Fiction Prize, is also the author of biographies of Bobby Darin and Jimmy Rosselli.
Boyett's Follow-up
Ace editor Anne Sowards has acquired a new novel by Steven R. Boyett, a sequel to his 1983 debut, Ariel, published when Boyett was 19. Richard Curtis negotiated the North American rights sale. The new fantasy, Elegy Beach, takes place in Southern California 30 years after Ariel and tells the story of the son of the Ariel protagonist and his own meeting with a unicorn. Planned hardcover pub date is 2009, along with a paperback reissue of Ariel. Boyett is a professional deejay.
