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No-nonsense business guru Lord Alan Sugar has done a deal with Pan Macmillan for his autobiography, to be published this autumn. The star of TV's "The Apprentice" chose Pan Mac after a publishers' "beauty contest", brokering the deal himself without the services of an agent.
Editorial director Ingrid Connell bought world rights to the book for an undisclosed sum.
Lord Sugar said he would be telling the story of his journey from a Clapton council estate to the world's Rich Lists himself. "I have been approached countless times by publishers with offers of ghost writers to ease the burden of writing my autobiography," he said. "I would never allow a book to be published unless I had written every word, so that readers feel they hear my voice and that I am talking to them personally."
Having recently reached the "milestone" of becoming Lord Sugar of Clapton and appointed as an advisor to the government, the time was now right to tell his story, he added. "As a marketing man through and through, I know the key rule of marketing is to give the market what it wants at the right time," he said.
Connell said Lord Sugar had already started work on his book before approaching publishers with a partial manuscript. The Amstrad boss is "as frank about his mistakes and doubts as he is about his successes" she said, calling his autobiography "everything you'd hope for...straight-talking, funny and highly entertaining."
Lord Sugar will be appearing in two BBC1 series in 2010: "The Young Apprentice" will be screened this spring, with a sixth series of "The Apprentice" coming later in the year.