OJ Simpson "Confession" To Be Re-Shopped

By Sara Nelson -- Publishers Weekly, 8/6/2007 3:07:00 PM

OJ Simpson's If I Did It, which supposedly imagines how he would have killed his ex-wife and her friend, is making the rounds again. The rights to the manuscript, which was originally commissioned by Judith Regan, was killed by her parent company, NewsCorp, and contributed to her firing, were awarded last month to the family of Ronald Goldman, Nicole Simpson's friend who was murdered with her.

It was unclear at the time whether the Goldmans planned to publish the manuscript, which reportedly contains gruesome scenes of "imagined" violence; some surmised that the purchase of the rights was the victim's family's way of keeping the book from ever being published.

But last Friday, Sharlene Martin, an L.A.-based agent with a history of representing "controversial" projects, approached the Goldman family with a promise to try to sell the book. Martin is the agent who recently sold Crown the rights to a book by Madonna's one-time nanny; the deal was later scotched for legal reasons.

"I have a passion for justice," Martin told PW. "I believe the Goldmans have every right to recoup every penny of the 38 million they are owed." The Goldman family was awarded a multimillion dollar civil judgement; OJ Simpson was acquitted of the murders in the criminal case.

The book is being shopped "as is," but Martin says there will be additional material "wrapped around" the original manuscript, not a word of which will be changed. Who will write this material, what it will say, whether the contributors will be paid, and whether the Goldmans will contribute their thoughts is as yet undecided. "But If I Did It was OJ Simpson's narrative," Martin says. "This will be the Goldman's narrative."

Martin says that since she signed on with the Goldmans last Friday, one publisher has approached her about publishing the book. Of four editors at major houses contacted by PW, none say they've seen it, and one who has heard about it remains skeptical. "They say the money is going to charity, that it will be a different book, and blah blah," says this editor. "But in the end, it's the OJ Simpson book."

Part of Martin's pitch will include the information that a portion of any moneys the Goldmans receive for the project will be donated to the Ronald Goldman Foundation for Justice. An indeterminate portion of her fee will go there as well, she says.

Martin would not specify which houses she plans to approach. But when asked if she dared take the new, improved manuscript to HarperCollins, the parent company of the erstwhile Regan Books, she paused. "If HarperCollins is interested in me walking in the door with this project," she said, "I'm happy to discuss it with them."