sunday-times.co.uk
Hillary in record British book deal
HILLARY CLINTON is to be paid more than £800,000 by a
British publisher for her memoirs - the largest amount for any
foreign autobiography in this country, writes Richard
Brooks.
The outgoing first lady sold the memoirs in America for £4.5m.
But the huge sum which the British publishing company
Headline has paid has stunned the book world.
Clinton's jackpot puts her almost alongside Victoria Beckham,
alias Posh Spice, whose £1m memoirs will come out this year.
Sir Alex Ferguson, whose recent autobiography, Managing My
Life, has been a bestseller, also topped the £1m mark.
"The prices now are getting quite extraordinary," said Patrick
Jansen-Smith, managing director of Transworld, referring to the
Clinton deal. "Even so, there is an argument that her book will
sell better than Bill's when he does his deal - a woman's
perspective and all that."
Yet publishers will also want the author to "deliver the goods".
In Clinton's case this will mean revealing stories about the
Monica Lewinsky affair.
Only the former Speaker of the Commons, Betty Boothroyd,
who is in the final stages of negotiating the sale of her
memoirs, approaches the size of Hillary
Clinton's deal. Three publishers, Random
House, Hodder and Macmillan, are believed
to be left in the running with the price as
high as £600,000 for the story of a
Yorkshire lass who made it to the top of
politics via a stint as a Tiller Girl.
Most politicians' books do not sell well. The
only recent exception was John Major's
memoirs. Showbiz personalities are a better
bet. Transworld paid about £500,000 for
the former Spice Girl Geri Halliwell's book,
which has fared very well.
However, the memoirs of Anthea Turner,
for which Little, Brown paid £400,000,
have sold only about 10,000 copies. |
