The Bookseller.com

2nd December 2008

Blair prepares to meet publishers

24.08.07 Katherine Rushton

Tony Blair will meet publishers in London at the start of October, together with Robert Barnett, the Washington lawyer he has instructed to sell his memoirs.

Random House and HarperCollins are expected to make bids for the book, and Bloomsbury and Simon & Schuster have confirmed they are also entering the fray. Hachette is understood to have ruled itself out of the competition, although c.e.o. Tim Hely Hutchinson declined to comment.

As revealed in The Bookseller last week, Blair and Barnett are seeking a deal with a publisher with a strong presence in the UK and the US. But they will also consider joint trans­atlantic bids
Bloomsbury chief executive Nigel Newton has contacted Miramax in the US to strengthen the company's transatlantic appeal, although he has made it clear that Bloomsbury will not offer the largest advance. The company's non-fiction publishing director Michael Fishwick edited the memoirs of Margaret Thatcher and John Major during his 20 years at HarperCollins.

Some insiders believe the publisher meetings are a charade, saying that Blair has already agreed a £4.5m handshake deal with Rupert Murdoch, chairman of HarperCollins' parent company News Corp.

Blair's approach direct to the US is seen as an attempt to bag the biggest deal possible by capitalising on his popularity there. Securing Barnett is also likely to inflate Blair's advance. Barnett won a reported $12m for Bill Clinton's memoirs (Random House) and a reported $8m from Penguin for a book by Alan Greenspan, the former head of the US Federal Reserve. He will also charge Blair a flat fee instead of the 10% to 15% most literary agents take in commission.

Estimates for the price of a Blair book vary wildly from £1m to £8m for full world and serial rights. The memoirs will be a dead-cert bestseller and can also expect strong international and backlist sales—but the actual numbers will depend on what Blair is prepared to reveal and how much will be serialised. The former prime minister has said he did not keep a diary during his decade in office.

Katherine Rushton Tony Blair Robert Barnett

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