Login  |  Register          Free Newsletter Subscription
Email
Print
Reprint
Learn RSS

PW: Hot Deals: A Whale of a Price

Judy Quinn -- Publishers Weekly, 6/15/1998

 [ PW Home ] [ Bestsellers ] [ Subscribe ] [ Search ]

Advertisement
Publishers WeeklyNews

Hot Deals: A Whale of a Price
Judy Quinn -- 6/15/98


...was paid by Viking Penguin in a rumored $1.2 millon U.S. rights-only, one-book, hard/soft preempt for In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex, a proposal by Nantucket-based maritime expert Nathaniel Philbrick that delves into the juicy historic 19th-century shipwreck -- complete with angry sperm whale and hints of survivors' cannibalism -- that also served as the inspiration for Moby Dick. With this deal, agent Stuart Krichevsky has another reason to thank his bestselling Perfect Storm author Sebastian Junger: Philbrick called Krichevsky to invite Junger to speak at his Egen Institute of Maritime Studies and then got around to discussing the book idea. Philbrick, who has written two other books for regional small presses, has new material to draw from, most particularly a newly discovered survivor's journal that provides a different perspective from the more sanitized and stereotypical account published by another survivor, Owen Chase, soon after the event (Narratives of the Wreck of the Whale-Ship Essex, still in print from Dover Publications). Viking editor Kris Puopolo, who also handled Dava Sobel's Longitude in paperback and clinched Sobel's upcoming switch to the house, will serve as editor on the book, which is tentatively scheduled for publication next summer. At press time, Krichevsky had also accepted his first foreign publisher preempt, a rumored mid-six-figure offer from German publisher Karl Blessing, who read the proposal while vacationing in Nantucket just after BEA.

Back To News
--->
 Search | Bestsellers | News | Features | Children's Books | Bookselling
 Interview | Industry Update | International | Classifieds | Authors On the Highway
 About PW | Subscribe
Copyright 2000. Publishers Weekly. All rights reserved.

 

Email
Print
Reprint
Learn RSS

Talkback

We would love your feedback!

Post a comment

» VIEW ALL TALKBACK THREADS

Related Content

Related Content

 

PW PARTNERS


 
Advertisement

More Content

  • Blogs
  • Podcasts
  • Photos

Blogs


Sorry, no blogs are active for this topic.

» VIEW ALL BLOGS RSS

Photos

» VIEW ALL GALLERIES
» VIEW FEATURED GALLERY
Advertisements






NEWSLETTERS
Click on a title below to learn more.

PW Daily
Religion BookLine
Children's Bookshelf
PW Comics Week
©2008 Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Use of this Web site is subject to its Terms of Use | Privacy Policy
Please visit these other Reed Business sites