Putnam Preempts Farnsworth’s Vampires

Rachel Kahan at Putnam preempted Christopher Farnsworth’s debut, Blood Oath, and two subsequent novels, via Alexandra Machinist at Linda Chester, who made the major six-figure world rights deal amid multiple initial offers. The series of books centers on a vampire sworn to protect the U.S. president against supernatural threats; Putnam will publish Blood Oath in 2010, with Berkley to publish titles in paperback beginning in 2011.

A Hacker’s Hacker

Julian Pavia at Crown has acquired world rights to Wired editor Kevin Poulsen’s Kingpin; David Fugate at LaunchBooks negotiated the deal. The narrative backbone of this book on electronic crime is the story of Max Butler, the hacker and former FBI informant who cornered the black market in stolen credit cards before an FBI sting uncovered the one million stolen cards on his hard drive, with fraudulent charges made on them to the tune of $96 million. Poulsen, a former hacker himself who served five years in prison for his exploits, was the subject of a 1997 book published by Little, Brown.

Sports Seasons

Times Books editorial director Paul Golob acquired world rights to an untitled book by Doug Glanville, former centerfielder for the Philadelphia Phillies, Chicago Cubs and Texas Rangers; David M. Larabell at David Black made the sale. Glanville’s debut, an account of a year in the life of major league baseball players, will open a window on how players prepare for games, spend their free time, deal with trades or injury, and the interactions with managers and coaches. The project grows out of Heading Home, Glanville’s online column for the New York Times. Expected pub date is spring 2010.

In another deal coming out of David Black’s agency, Harmony executive editor John Glusman bought North American rights to Bill Strickland’s Tour de Lance: A Wild Ride Through Lance Armstrong’s Comeback Season—and Our Own Obsession with Second Chances; Black himself made the sale. Strickland, editor-at-large of Bicycling magazine, will cover the 2009 race season, from Australia’s Tour Down Under to the Tour de France in July.

Policy and Warfare

Sara Bershtel and Tom Engelhardt at Metropolitan Books have acquired a new book by Andrew J. Bacevich, The Washington Consensus, via John Wright. The book, to be part of the imprint’s American Empire Project, will look at the consensus that has historically shaped Washington’s foreign, economic and especially military policy. Bacevich will call for a new openness to a range of critical ideas long excluded from inside-the-Beltway thinking. Metropolitan has world rights.

Richard Kane at Zenith Press bought world English rights to Stephen Melton’s The Clausewitz Delusion: How the U.S. Army Unnecessarily Screwed Up the Wars in Afghanistan and Iraq—A Way Forward from E. J. McCarthy. Former army lieutenant colonel Melton will argue that current army strategy has embraced a view of warfare promulgated by a Prussian general in the 1830s—Carl von Clausewitz—that is inappropriate to today. Pub date is November.

Hogan Revealed

Kathryn Huck at St. Martin’s has acquired world rights to Hulk Hogan’s My Life Outside the Ring via Joel Kneedler at Alive Communications in conjunction with Eric Bischoff and Jason Hervey of Bischoff Hervey Entertainment. Teaming up with People’s Mark Dagostino, Hogan will reveal the private person behind the public persona, opening up about his childhood, his career and the breakup of his marriage and his son’s incarceration. SMP is planning an October 2009 publication.