Thursday, August 16, 2007
Blair Hires US Lawyer to Broker a Memoir Deal
Interesting that Tony Blair has hired a US lawyer, Robert Barnett, to sell his memoirs. Aren't there any good literary agents in this country? If he had called, I could have told him about Ed Victor, Michael Sissons and Jonathan Lloyd to name but three. It is a further sign that Blair sees his financial future in America. Sky News reckons he could command up to $12 million for a book deal. Any publisher who pays anywhere near that deserves to go out of business.
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19 comments:
Disagree, the last thing he needs is an agent.
Who knows what Blair has been promised in fireside chats in the US either with Bush or with Murdoch?
They'll have to find a semi-legitimate way to make the payments of course. 'I know, Tony we'll pay you 50 times the going rate for your memoirs. sorted.'
yer know he could afford a peerage now!
Makes more sense. Everyone hates him here these days.
$12 million for a book of fairy tales? I know that first editions of children's books can command high prices but that is ridiculous.
Pity he did not need a lawyer to get him out of the Cash for Honours scandal ! Perhaps there will be more to come once HM Customs & Revenue get stuck into investigating Levy's overseas deposit accounts !
Even at half that amount it pays to use a good lawyer who charges a single negotiating fee than pay an agent who takes 10 or 15 per cent.
The working title is
'On the seventh day'
"good literary agents" - sure, but they only deal in good literature - which is not the same as what might sell, though I think that whatsiname has blown it on this side of the Atlantic.
Hmmmm, now that Harry Potter won't be bringing out any more titles, perhaps we could replace those with a series of, say, Tony Blair and the Gobblin' King, Tony Blair and the Spinner of Mass Destruction, etc etc.
Iain, you could even run a competition ?
Alan Douglas
bit of a eap of logic to assume Blair sees his future in the US on the basis that he's instructed an American to negotiate his book deal.
Clearly, US rights (sales) must be key. the Uk will be a by the way market for that book.
Agents smagents. Roy Keane, David O'Leary and Niall Quinn all instructed solicitor Michael Kennedy rather than the pond scum football agents.
Jealous?
How many Labour supporters are going to rush out and buy a book by Blair?
It's in God's Own Country where he has his admirers.
It makes one sick to think of the poodle profiting from his time in office.
Time for a rule that political memoirs can only be written fifty years after leaving office?
I'll eat my hat if they don't go to Murdoch.
Who will know then if the payment doesn't include a big fat thank you for leaving the Sky EPG (electronic programme guide) in his monopolistic, political sail trimming fingers?
Not to mention The Sun, Times and, please no, Facebook.
How could they allow him to close ITV news 24 and then try to pull Sky news off free view less than a year later?
Now Mr Blair's not an MP - and this is why he resigned so quickly - he won't have to reveal how big the bung, I mean royalty payment is.
I wondered if this "deal" as it has the Dirty Digger's hallmark on it IF this is linked into the book I heard Adam Boulton is supposed to be writing at the moment?
Given Sky broke the story last night !Adam has a good *in road*
Could be wrong hamsters often are.
One of the few recent positive developments in British politics is that discredited Tony Blair is at last being buried and forgotten about.
So please Iain don't keep digging him up.
I wonder if book publishers would have been so keen to sign a deal with Blair's hero Adolf Hitler for his memoir had he survived WW2?
I look forward to an "alternative version" along the lines of the Little Red Book, pointing out the inconsistencies, lies and omissions.
I hope the product is studied closely by lawyers, particularly the period 2002 onwards....
It's not much point being PM for 10 years and the "most successful" Labour politician of his generation if you can't trouser a quick US$15 million and pick up a knighthood/peerage at the same time when you retire. It's what all good socialists do - isn't it ?
Tony Blair is so popular here in the states that he could get elected to just about anything, except the presidency, but Schwartzenegger is working on that detail, and may get the role first.
Frankly, it's ridiculous to claim that Blair needs an agent in the US.
Yanks appreciate his stance on the Middle East and cut him slack for his domestic policies, which are a far second in importance at this time in history.
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