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Blair goes to US for book deal

16.08.07 Katherine Rushton

Tony Blair has recruited the US lawyer Robert Barnett (pictured left) to broker a deal for his memoirs. Barnett is best known for securing a reported $12m for Bill Clinton's autobiography - but estimates for Blair's book set the price tag at a record-breaking £8m, for world and full serial rights.

The advance will be inflated by Blair's perceived value in the US, said one leading publisher of political books. "The Americans love him. They see him as an articulate George W. Bush. He’ll get a good whack out of a US publisher." Publishing giants Random House and HarperCollins are tipped as the most likely buyers.

Rupert Murdoch, chief executive of HarperCollins' parent company, News Corporation, is thought to have done a handshake deal with the former prime minister in 2006. But Random House also has strong links with Blair through its UK chief executive Gail Rebuck, whose husband Philip Gould was one of the architects of new Labour. Random House also publishes Alastair Campbell, as well as Clinton and the mega-selling thriller writer James Patterson who are both clients of Barnett.

But the approach direct to the US has raised suspicions that Blair will bypass Random House, whose chief tie to Blair is through the UK.

It will also thwart UK agents who were vying for a slice of the action. "It will be a shoot out between HarperCollins and Random House, but I think HarperCollins will prevail despite the much trumped link with Gail Rebuck's husband. Murdoch's keen and he’s got deep pockets," said a major non-fiction publisher. "They've been political bedfellows for a very long time, and [News Corp] is a multimedia company," a leading UK literary agent added. Barnett declined to comment; Random House said it never comments on "speculation and rumours"; no one from HarperCollins was available to speak.

Whoever wins it is set to have a huge bestseller on their hands with a long backlist life and high international sales—as long as Blair does not delay publication. Margaret Thatcher’s The Path to Power (HarperCollins, 1995) sold an estimated 500,000 in hardback. John Major: The Autobiography (HarperCollins, 1999) is also seen as hugely successful, selling over 200,000 hardbacks for an advance of around £1m.

"Prime ministers tend to do good business because of the international sales," said Alan Samson, publisher at Weidenfeld & Nicolson. "In living memory, Heath is the only one who didn’t do the business because he left it such a long time [30 years after he left office]." According to last year's select committee report into government memoirs: "Sir Simon Jenkins told us that he could remember very well a certain Chancellor of the Exchequer, who shall be nameless, inquiring as to what his memoirs might be worth and the answer was: 'A quarter of a million tomorrow, £100,000 next week, £10,000 two months from now. How fast can you write them?'"

US Todays Picks Katherine Rushton Tony Blair

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