Book Deals: McCall Smith to Pantheon; Niffenegger to Scribner
by Matthew Thornton -- Publishers Weekly, 3/10/2009 2:49:00 PM
McCall Smith Branches Out
Alexander McCall Smith has signed a new deal with Edward Kastenmeier at Pantheon for three more books in his The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series; Robin Straus of the Robin Straus Agency sold U.S. rights. Kastenmeier also picked up the inaugural volume of a new series by McCall Smith entitled Corduroy Mansions -- set in a London apartment building inhabited by an assortment of characters and a dog -- as well as a stand-alone novel, La’s Orchestra Saves the World, which is set during World War II and celebrates the healing powers of friendship and music.
The three new Ladies’ Detective novels bring the total to 14 books; Pantheon, which published the first three books in the series in 2003, will publish number 10, Tea Time for the Traditionally Built, in April. HBO is also airing its series based on the books this spring. La’s Orchestra Saves the World is slated for a December release; no pub dates for the other titles yet. Canadian rights to all of these new titles went to Random House Canada.
Niffenegger to Scribner
A weeklong, three-round auction culminated yesterday with Scribner editor-in-chief Nan Graham taking U.S. rights to Audrey Niffenegger’s second novel, Her Fearful Symmetry, for a figure reported to be just shy of $5 million; Joe Regal at Regal Literary made the sale. In an unusually intense and crowded competition for a novel, Regal, who told publishers he would not be accepting a pre-empt, had over 20 initial bids, some of which reached well into seven figures at that stage. Eight houses remained in the final round of offers, which were made on Monday, though some of those offers were house bids, including that of Scribner, which bid with Atria and S&S.
Though the highest bidder ended up being the winning house, Regal said the final round of offers included each house’s marketing plans, and Niffenegger’s decision also weighed her personal connection to each interested editor; the author spent close to 10 hours on the phone with editors last Friday and Monday. Scribner will publish Her Fearful Symmetry this fall to coordinate with Jonathan Cape’s publication in the U.K.
