To: Jim Willie CB who wrote (39857 ) 8/6/2001 5:31:18 PM From: stockman_scott Respond to of 65232 Bill Clinton's Memoirs to Be Published by Knopf Monday August 6 5:23 PM ET By Christopher Michaud NEW YORK (Reuters) - Former President Bill Clinton's ''thorough and candid'' memoirs chronicling his life through the tumultuous White House years that included his impeachment will be published in 2003 by Alfred A. Knopf, the firm's top editor said on Monday. No dollar amount was disclosed by Knopf, the flagship imprint of the Knopf Publishing Group which is a division of Random House, Inc., but media reports said the figure was expected to exceed $8 million. That would make it one of the largest in book publishing history, with the $8.5 million for the worldwide rights to a 1994 book by Pope John Paul (news - web sites) II believed to be the current nonfiction benchmark. Clinton's wife, New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (news - web sites), reportedly received between $7 million and $8.5 million for her memoir to be published by Simon & Schuster. Sonny Mehta, Knopf's president and editor-in-chief, said negotiations with Clinton, which he characterized as ''remarkably amiable,'' began in the spring and ended on Aug. 3. ``We wanted to know what he wanted to say and why he wanted to write a book,'' Mehta told Reuters in a telephone interview. ``He was completely open about it, and he said it would be a thorough and candid telling of his life.'' The heart of the widely anticipated memoir, Clinton told Mehta, would be his two-term presidency, which included the Monica Lewinsky sex scandal that led to Clinton's impeachment. Clinton remained in office when the Senate voted against ousting him. Asked whether readers could expect sections on Lewinsky, Whitewater or other Clinton scandals, Mehta said: ``I don't imagine that the president is going to shy away from discussing anything that happened to him during his presidency. It should make for riveting reading for all of us.'' He added that he ``would be surprised if there wasn't a lot of Mrs. Clinton in the book'' as well. Mehta also flatly refused to comment on reports of figures that one top literary agent said could be as high as $10 million for the book, but he predicted that ``readers all over the world are going to be fascinated with this.'' Editor Robert Gottlieb, who has worked with authors including Katharine Graham (news - web sites) and Toni Morrison, will serve as Clinton's editor. Clinton issued a statement saying he was looking forward ''to working with Sonny Mehta and Bob Gottlieb, and the rest of their extraordinary team as I begin writing my memoirs.'' As of Dec. 31, the Clinton legal defense fund had paid $7.4 million in legal bills for the former president and his wife, a freshman Democratic senator. Their total legal fees totaled $11.3 million, leaving a gap of some $3.9 million. The book will be published in hardcover by Knopf in 2003, and by Vintage Books in trade paperback in 2004. Knopf acquired world publishing rights to the book, including pre- and post-publication serial rights, English language and translation rights, and audio and electronic rights, from Robert B. Barnett of Williams & Connolly in Washington, who represented Clinton in the negotiations. Random House is owned by Bertelsmann AG (news - web sites), the international media company. Rival publishers were caught off-guard by the announcement. ``By all accounts this was a pre-emptive bid,'' said an executive at one company. ``It looks like they (Knopf) did an end run around everybody.'' Many in the publishing industry had anticipated an auction, in which publishing houses bid for rights to a hotly contested book like the Clinton memoir and plans for the book's content are discussed before any deal is agreed. The reported huge figure being paid Clinton means the book would have to be an extremely strong seller to bring Knopf much in the way of profits, but the scandal-plagued Clinton years have spawned dozens of profitable books as well as spiked the ratings of a handful of cable television news and talk shows. __________________________________ BTW, its HARD to believe a publisher would pay millions of dollars for Clinton's memoirs...we'll see how well they sell <G>.