Portfolio Adds Porter Title

by Matthew Thornton -- Publishers Weekly, 10/1/2008 3:09:00 PM

Portfolio publisher Adrian Zackheim prevailed over several other high-level bidders in a fast and fierce auction for New York Times editorial board member Eduardo Porter’s first book, tentatively titled Pricing It: How We Price and Misprice Life, the Universe, and Everything. Zoe Pagnamenta, who went out with the submission a week ago Tuesday, had the world rights (excluding U.K.) deal in place by Friday for a sum said to be in the high six figures.

Though Pricing It will use economics as a way to gain insights into our lives—Zackheim compares the book to Freakonomics, Blink and Predictably Irrational—Porter aims to hone in specifically on how there is a price behind each choice we make.  Examining both individual decisions and larger historical events through the prices that determined them, Porter will show how prices are set and how they change our lives, as well as why the notion of price, in Zackheim's words, is "misunderstood and underappreciated--not just by business people but by everyone."

Porter, who began his career in journalism in 1990 as a reporter for Notimex, the Mexican news agency, joined The New York Times in 2004 to cover economics; he joined its editorial board in 2007. Portfolio hopes to publish the book sometime in 2010. This is the second major acquisition for the Penguin Group’s business imprint in a week; last Thursday, Zackheim acquired a book on the Wall Street crisis by Joe Nocera and Bethany McLean for a sum reportedly just over a million dollars.