Williams Sisters Strike Again
by John F. Baker -- Publishers Weekly, 4/5/2004
For the second time in a month, tennis superstars Venus and Serena Williams have signed a book deal, this one for a highly illustrated guide for young readers (8–up) called How to Play Tennis for DK. Publication is scheduled for as early as this summer—to coincide with the U.S. Open. It will thus beat by as much as nine months a children's book signed earlier with Houghton Mifflin called Venus and Serena: Serving from the Hip, which is set for next spring, to be followed later by a second book about family values. The DK deal was signed by publisher Christopher Davis with the sisters' agent, Lisa Queen at IMG. The hardcover book will contain hundreds of action pictures in which the Williams siblings demonstrate tennis skills, court strategy and etiquette, along with offering their written game advice. Queen points out that while the deals were done at around the same time, they are essentially for different books—the Houghton is more about values and game stories, less about technique. They were originally planned to come out around the same time, but the Houghton title proved to take much longer to put together, Queen said.
