Little, Brown Wins Fey

by Matthew Thornton -- Publishers Weekly, 10/6/2008 7:46:00 AM

A Little, Brown official this morning confirmed that the house will publish Tina Fey's book, concluding a beauty contest believed to include Ecco and two other houses. Richard Abate at Endeavor handled negotiations for the project, said to skew more toward humor than memoir; though it's unclear what the final price tag ended up being, Wednesday’s New York Post reported that offers were approaching $6 million. Publishers were clearly smitten with Fey, whose recent Emmy win and “Saturday Night Live” Sarah Palin imitations have ratcheted up her profile; other houses expressed early interest in the project despite Abate’s no-meeting, no-proposal pitch, but one such publisher at a Random House imprint who didn’t bid said that the price tag just became untenable. Rumor had it Fey wanted to go somewhere “literary"; presumably Little, Brown, which earlier this week lured Donna Tartt away from Knopf, fits that bill.