Foreign Buyers for Teenager's Book
By John F. Baker -- Publishers Weekly, 4/23/2001
The first foreign sales have been made for Mirror Dreams, a two-volume fantasy adventure by 14-year-old Catherine Webb, daughter of Nick Webb, former head of Simon & Schuster's London operation, and now the point man there for Rightscenter.com. The project was snapped up originally by editor Tim Holman as the kickoff title for Little, Brown U.K.'s new YA imprint, Orbit, next year. Paris agent Lora Fountain, acting on behalf of young Webb's U.K. agent, Meg Davis at MBA, sold it to Gallimard, the French home of the Harry Potter books; Italy's Sperling & Kupfer have preempted the books, and there is heated competition for German rights. Fountain has been agenting in Paris for 15 years, having moved there from San Francisco; she began with smaller publishers and agents lacking a French connection, and moved into the big leagues by recently taking on the children's list of Ed Victor.
