Edwards signs book deal

WASHINGTON – For U.S. Sen. John Edwards, Friday brought another rite of passage for the politically ambitious: a book deal.

Publishing giant Simon & Schuster announced that it had inked an agreement with the North Carolina Democrat to produce a book "on the lessons learned during his distinguished legal career."

The as-yet untitled hardcover is due to hit stores late next year — precisely the time that Edwards, a former trial lawyer, would be seeking to broaden his national exposure for a 2004 White House bid.

In modern presidential politics, such books "can be an important part of the process, as a way of introducing yourself and your ideas to the American people," said Allan Lichtman, a presidential historian at American University. "If you can get people talking about it, that’s almost as good as getting them to read it."

Aides said Edwards would enlist the help of a professional writer to produce the book, which will highlight the cases of some of his more sympathetic clients from his days in the courtroom.

During his two-decade legal career, Edwards represented numerous children and families that sued insurance companies, doctors and big corporations for various forms of negligence and malpractice.

In political speeches, Edwards has often made the case that his work as a senator is similar because it involves standing up for ordinary people against powerful interests.

Edwards is hardly the only 2004 presidential aspirant moonlighting as an author. Former Vice President Al Gore, who is considering another presidential bid, has reportedly been hard at work on a new book. Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, another potential Democratic candidate, has agreed to write a memoir about this session of Congress. And U.S. Sen. Joseph Lieberman, who is eyeing a 2004 race as well, is at work on a book with his wife.

Victoria Meyer, a spokeswoman for Simon & Schuster, said Edwards played an important role in shaping the scope of his project.

"We initially approached him with the idea of doing a book," Meyer said. "But the idea for doing this book came from the senator himself."

Meyer said she thought the book would appeal "to a very broad audience — people who are interested in a good read, people who are interested in politics, people who are interested in legal affairs." Edwards’ office was mostly mum about the project Friday, but his spokesman, Mike Briggs, did volunteer that proceeds will benefit the Wade Edwards Foundation.

The nonprofit organization was set up in 1996 in the memory of Edwards’ son, who died in a car accident. Its primary project is a free after-school computer and learning center adjacent to Broughton High School in Raleigh.

Neither Simon & Schuster nor Edwards’ office would disclose the terms of the deal Friday. Edwards will be required to report income from the project on his next Senate financial disclosure statement next May.

In recent months, Edwards has traveled to Iowa, New Hampshire and other key states around the country in preparation for a presidential bid. On Saturday, he is making an appearance in South Carolina, which will likely be the third state to hold a presidential nominating contest in 2004. Edwards has said he will make a decision about whether to move forward with a presidential bid either later this year or early next year.

Edwards' colleague, U.S. Sen. Jesse Helms, is also under contract to write a book. The North Carolina Republican, who retires in January after a 30-year Senate career, is writing his memoirs for Random House.

Mrs. Clinton's Book Deal
By Alfred S. Regnery

Hillary Clinton’s recent acceptance of an $8-million advance from New York book publisher Simon & Schuster for her memoirs of her White House years proves that the Clinton arrogance, so well displayed by her husband over the past eight years, is still alive and well.

And it also shows that large, New York-based regulated businesses think it beneficial to have the junior New York senator on their side.

Washington liberals were shocked when Newt Gingrich (R.-Ga.) accepted a $4.5-million book advance from HarperCollins shortly after being elected speaker of the House in 1994, and an ethics investigation prompted him to cancel the deal and accept a $1 advance instead. Among other things, the deal was criticized because Rupert Murdoch, who owns HarperCollins, had several regulatory issues pending before the U.S. government, mostly involving Fox Television, another of his holdings. Now, not surprisingly, the Gingrich critics find the Hillary arrangement an appropriate deal for such a literary powerhouse.

Simon & Schuster is owned by Viacom, which also controls CBS, Paramount Pictures, MTV and Showtime. Viacom has numerous major regulatory matters pending before a number of federal regulatory agencies, and is certain to have all sorts of issues come before the United States Senate during the next several years.

It has been widely reported that Mrs. Clinton demanded that the entire advance be paid up front, before the end of December, no doubt so that Senate ethics rules would not apply, since she will not be sworn in as a senator until January 3. Both the Clintons and Simon & Schuster deny that this is the case, but how many denials have we heard from Hillary and Bill before? And, of course, Hillary’s press secretary assures us that in no way does the deal violate Senate ethics rules.

Usual and Customary?

The Senate rules allow acceptance by senators of book advances so long as the deal is "usual and customary." Having learned spin techniques well from her husband, Hillary assures us that the deal complies in all respects with Senate rules.

But it doesn’t, and Hillary knows it.

First, the Clinton advance is simply too large–the largest ever except for that received by Pope John Paul II for world rights to his memoirs, a book that was subsequently published worldwide, in countless languages. Clinton’s $8 million is far more than Simon & Schuster would ever have to pay her in royalties. Publishers calculate advances on the basis of how much in royalties the author may ultimately earn. Under a usual and customary royalty deal, an $8-million advance would require sales of over two million copies of the Clinton book. No political book, no memoir, no autobiography has ever, ever sold that many copies.

The outside sale, in fact, for Hillary’s book would be 200,000 copies, and even that is probably a stretch. Mrs. Clinton’s previous book, It takes a Village, which spent weeks on the best-seller lists, probably had a net sale (meaning after the bookstores returned unsold copies) of about 150,000 copies. Simon & Schuster is now trying to sell subsidiary rights to the new book–foreign language rights, first serialization rights, audio rights, and so on–but will receive, at most, several hundred thousand dollars for them.

Among the largest-selling nonfiction books in the past 20 years have been The Way Things Ought to Be by Rush Limbaugh, which sold about 1.5 million copies, and Iacocca, by Lee Iacocca, which sold about 1.3 million copies. Virtually no nonfiction hardcover book has sold more.

Virtually Unheard of Arrangement

Second, Simon & Schuster admits it received no written proposal from the new senator, and thus really has no idea of what it bought. Negotiations for any major book–any "usual and customary" deal–start with a written proposal from the author, usually carefully prepared and containing considerable detail about what will be told in the book. Without one, Simon & Schuster could have, for all they know, bought a pig in a poke, and have no way of enforcing Mrs. Clinton to say anything worthwhile at all.

Finally, if the entire advance were in fact paid upon signing of the contract, the deal would defy the notion of usual and customary–such an arrangement in fact, is virtually unheard of, particularly for so large an advance. But even if rumors in New York publishing circles are true that, after all the criticism, Mrs. Clinton has settled for receiving half up front, the contract is still not usual and customary.

Advances, particularly large ones, are usually paid in installments–the first third, or perhaps quarter, on signing of the contract, another installment upon delivery of the manuscript, or part of it, another upon acceptance by the publisher, and the final installment upon publication. Thus the publisher can determine whether it is getting its money’s worth, and has some leverage with the author. In fact, it is not unusual for a deal to be canceled part way through the process if the publisher finds the author cannot deliver what he promised.

Simon & Schuster and its parent would be more honest to simply admit that they are giving Mrs. Clinton an $8-million gift. But of course they already did that (Viacom was one of the largest contributors to both Clinton presidential campaigns). And what need we say about CBS?

Finally, Senate ethics rules are very explicit about conflicts of interest, and even the appearance of a conflict is generally studiously avoided by any self-respecting senator. One would think that such a high-profile member of the world’s most deliberative body would want to avoid putting herself in the position of having to explain any vote in favor of anything Viacom and its subsidiaries do after accepting $8 million from the company.

But eight years of Clintonism should have taught us that what applies to everybody else is simply an inconvenience, at most, for the Clintons, and can be explained, and spun, away.

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