PEDALING AWAY
Lance Armstrong, the American cyclist who won a remarkable victory in the Tour de France last month, has an amazing story to tell, and he plans to tell it for Putnam v-p and senior editor Stacy Creamer in a book she hopes to publish next spring, before Armstrong rides in the great cycle race again next summer or competes in the Olympics. Armstrong came back from what seemed like an almost certain death from cancer (he was given only a 20% chance to survive) to win one of the most grueling tests of physical fitness that exists and fully reclaim his position among the world's great cyclists. Armstrong was diagnosed with advanced testicular cancer less than three years ago and underwent extensive chemotherapy; he didn't return to cycling until last year. Checks every four months for the last two years have shown him clear of the disease. He was married last year and is expecting his first child in October. This inspirational tale will be co-written with experienced sportswriter Sally Jenkins; the deal, which also calls for a Berkley paperback a year later, was put together with Armstrong's manager, Bill Stapleton. It is a book Creamer has always wanted because, as she told PW, she is a cyclist herself -- though "not quite on the Armstrong level."
INSIDER'S TALE
Mike Medavoy is a big name in Hollywood, a man who has headed four studios, been involved with movies as various as One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest, Annie Hall and The Silence of the Lambs and won a reputation as one of the last of the old breed of cigar-chewing moguls. Now he is planning to tell his story, his view of how Hollywood works and how it has changed over the years, with a host of stories about the stars and power players, in what his agent, Andrew Stuart of the Literary Group International, said will be the most authoritative book of its kind since William Goldman's Adventures in the Screen Trade. It has been sold to Paul Schnee at Pocket Books under the provisional title Inside the Dream Machine. The book will be co-written with Josh Young, a contributing editor at George magazine and Entertainment Weekly.
PRINCESS IN MANHATTAN
That's the idea behind an upcoming Avon YA title by Meggin Cabot, whose busy career seems to be on the move. Disney paid six figures for an option on Cabot's The Princess Diaries, about a Manhattan teenager whose father turns out to be a European prince, a fact that wreaks havoc on her life in high school. The deal -- made with Whitney Houston's Brownhouse Productions by William Morris's Bill Contardi, acting on behalf of Cabot's agent, Laura Langlie at Kidde, Hoyt & Picard -- precedes the appearance of the book by 10 months; it's due next June, edited by Avon's Abigail McAden. Langlie has also sold a four-book YA series by Cabot, writing as Jenny Carroll, to Ingrid Van der Leeden at Pocket for its new Pulse imprint. The series is called the Mediator; again Contardi is seeking film deals based on its characters. Cabot has another career, as a writer of historical romance for St. Martin's under the name Patricia Cabot. This career is a solid 18 months old, with two titles already out and a third, An Improper Proposal, due in November. Her editor at St. Martin's is Jennifer Weis (with her work habits, she needs as many editors as pen names).
SHORT TAKES
Someone who writes exclusively romance, and has become a bestseller at it, is Karen Robards, whom Pocket Books' Caroline Tolley has just taken over as a house author (from Delacorte) in a seven-figure preemptive deal with agent Steve Axelrod for world hard-soft rights to two new books. The first is due for publication late next year.... It's true that the e-book edition of Martin Dugard's Knockdown beat his own hardcover into print (Hot Deals, Aug. 23). We are reminded, however, that McGraw-Hill's The Fatal Storm by Rob Mundle shipped June 28, thereby beating all rivals.
