Two-Book Deal for Self-Publisher

Megan Tingley, who has her own imprint at Little, Brown, met young Mawi Asgedom last spring at BEA, where he first presented his self-published memoir, Of Beetles and Angels, recording the remarkable story of the 25-year-old author's life from birth in Ethiopia to a refugee camp in the Sudan, emigration to the U.S., an eventual Harvard scholarship and a commencement address to his class of 1999. Asgedom recently told his story in an Oprah segment called "Coming to America," an obvious springboard to wider publication, and that's what Tingley is offering. She will do a paperback of the memoir next fall and a nonfiction advice book for teenagers, based on Asgedom's motivational speeches, in spring 2003. The deal, for a low six figures, was put together with Mary Yockey, a buyer for the Illinois-based Anderson's Bookshops chain, her first as a literary agent.