Ex-C.I.A. Officer in New Book Talks (PLAME BOOK DEAL BOMBING)

NY Times ^ | 6-1-06 | MOTOKO RICH

[AmeriBrit]

I thought Slick had already sold all those, but since Joe and Valerie are such good friends of Slick and Hillary maybe she knows where the stolen FBI files are hidden.

[NormsRevenge]

the "first airing of her actual role in the American intelligence community, as well as the prominence of her role in the lead-up to the war."

--

zzZZZZzzzzzz

[Prost1]

I want to hear more about their 2nd date.
I understand it lasted only 7 minutes.

[devolve]

best viewed/heard on WebTV/MSN-TV - IE/Mozilla
then clicking audio links will not kill any animation FX

[Eric in the Ozarks]

They've given a whole new definition to self-dealing.

[PhilDragoo]

[LS]

As one who is now pretty deeply involved in publishing, I find these numbers just unfathomable. Do you know how many books you have to sell to re-coup a $2.5 million advance????

The author normally gets somewhere in the range of 10-15%. If it's someone REALLY big, like a Clinton, maybe 20% royalty. Most books list for between $20 and $30. Over $30 and sales plummet. At $20, you'd have to sell easily over a million before you've recovered what you laid out to the author---but every book doesn't sell for "list." Many are discounted for the big chains, then there are the ultra-discounts for the book clubs.

THERE IS ONLY ONE NUMBER THAT IS IMPORTANT, AND THAT IS BOOKS "SCANNED." Books in print, or shipped, are irrelevant---what goes out can come back.

Consider also that Hillary's "tell-all" biography only SCANNED about 500,000 copies! Now, maybe a publisher can take a loss on a big name and have it spill over in terms of publicity to other titles, but not with someone like Plame.

[RobFromGa]

Maybe the deal fell through when she told them that after seeing what happened to the Million Little Pieces author, they might want to publish her booka s Fiction "just to be safe".

Either that or when they told her to start expanding her submitted chapter into the full-blown book, Plame said that there wasn't anything else to write about and asked them to just make it "a really little book and we can add some pictures of me to make it really neat."

[RobFromGa]

Consider also that Hillary's "tell-all" biography only SCANNED about 500,000 copies!

Is is possible to get this information on other books?

[mass55th]

"They want to be famous for being famous."

They're legends in their own minds.

[FastCoyote]

I was in the book business too, even have my own mini publishing label. I just don't see how the numbers work either, even for Clinton, unless they are Democrats ponying up to payoff special friends.

[bcsco]

[MinuteGal]

Oh, darn it. I really want to read her book. I just dying to hear more about how she sexily whispered to Joe in bed, "I'm a secret agent" when they were shagging sans nuptials.

Leni

[norwaypinesavage]

Let's see. A not particularly competent mid level bureaucrat in the federal government wants to sell a book about her work. That plus a cup of coffee should be worth about a buck (unless the coffee is particularly good).

[prairiebreeze]

Well, I'm sure the five people that planned on buying the book are impatiently tapping their toes...

[finnigan2]

My memory may be wrong here, but isn't Simon & Schuster the publishing firm that has been accused of regularly signing unusually big book advances to Democratic Party activists and politicians as one way of skirting campaign contribution laws while at the same time promoting anti Bush screeds which can then be picked up by the MSM and get a "double bounce" from their investment?
I seem to recall that they were the ones that gave Bill and Hill big money for their "memoirs" just as they left the White House which some claimed was really a disguised gift which would otherwise have been illegal.

[rabidralph]

the book would be the "first airing of her actual role in the American intelligence community, as well as the prominence of her role in the lead-up to the war.

That could probably be explained in a brochure.

[LS]

Yes, if you pay a service called "Bookscan," which all the publishers and almost all agents have. It has cut all the BS out of selling manuscripts to publishers---if you say, "My last book sold 'x'," they whip it up on Bookscan and immediately say, "No, it sold 'y.'" I'm told this is expensive, though.

[LS]

Certainly the Dem Party subsidized both of the Clintons' books. I'm betting it kicked in perhaps .5 million or "guaranteed" purchases to give out to loyalists.

I know a guy who wrote a Bush book---he was something of an insider---and the GOP gave him their mailing lists to sell the book. So he sold a lot. Same approach.

[Freee-dame]

My memory may be wrong here, but isn't Simon & Schuster the publishing firm that has been accused of regularly signing unusually big book advances to Democratic Party activists and politicians as one way of skirting campaign contribution laws while at the same time promoting anti Bush screeds which can then be picked up by the MSM and get a "double bounce" from their investment?

The left has so many ways of deceiving the public.