Clinton Deal with Knopf Invites Speculation

Ending one round of conjecture and starting a new one, Bill Clinton last week signed a deal with Knopf to publish his memoir. The former president, with the help of Washington lawyer Robert Barnett, sold world rights to the Random House imprint without negotiating with anyone else, which allowed the price to remain a secret. "One of the side effects [of doing the deal this way] is that the money has not become the primary issue," said Knopf editor-in-chief Sonny Mehta.

Yet in the days following the announcement, the exact opposite happened. From Inside.com to the AP, everyone had a guess, with most coming in the $10 million $12 million range. Speculation even abounded about why the price remained a secret, namely: Bill may have been embarrassed by an advance lower than Hillary's, while Sonny might have been uncomfortable with anything higher.

Mehta also remained guarded about the book's contents, but hinted that Clinton would discuss the impeachment proceedings. "He's going to talk about himself, he's going to talk about entering public life, he's going to talk about growing up. But mostly it will be about his two-term presidency and the presidency's principal issues," he said, adding that Clinton doesn't plan to use a ghostwriter.

The book is due out in 2003, the year that Scribner will publish Hillary Clinton's autobiography. Asked if there would be coordination between Knopf and Scribner, Simon & Schuster spokesperson Adam Rothberg said, "If you're publishing a book of the magnitude of Mrs. Clinton's memoir, you want to be careful when you publish it." Mehta said he hopes that "at a certain point we will have a telephone conversation with S&S."

Mehta and other Knopf executives, including Ashbel Green and Robert Gottlieb (the latter will edit the book), met with Clinton in the last few weeks to discuss the deal. "We told him about ourselves and the kind of books we'd publish. He's a ferocious reader and likes some of the books we recently bought," Mehta said.

The method by which Clinton sold the book has become a source of irritation for other houses. An executive at one large publisher said that a lot of houses, including his own, would have loved to get a pitch they could swing at. "I imagine there are a lot of publishers who are angry they couldn't bid on it," said the executive.

Landing a name like Clinton does give Knopf a certain cachet. Still, Clinton will likely benefit more from Knopf's prestige than the other way around. Whether Knopf could reap a financial windfall remains a question. Mehta may not want to remember a quote from Green that ran in the Wall Street Journal last December. Since the Fords, the quote ran, books by First Ladies "have always done better than their husbands'."