Deals

Black Issues Book Review, March-April, 2005 by Angela D. Dodson

NONFICTION

* United States Senator Barack Obama of Illinois has struck a $1.9 million, three-book deal with Crown Publishing Group and Alfred A. Knopf Books for Young Readers, divisions of Random House Inc. Obama, whose reissued memoir, Dreams From My Father, was first published in 1995, leaped onto leading best-seller lists and stayed there last year after his keynote speech at the Democratic National Convention. [See BIBR cover story, January-February 2005.]

Random House said Obama would write two books for adults and one for children. The deal was contingent upon approval by the Senate Ethics Committee, and proceeds of the children's book were to go to charity. The first book, scheduled for next year, would be about politics, the children's book about his own childhood and the third topic was undetermined. The sale was made to Rachel Klayman at Crown, begun by Jane Dystel at Dystel & Goderich Literary Management and finished by Robert Barnett at Williams & Connolly. Rights to the children's book to were sold to Michelle Frey at Knopf Children's, by Robert Barnett.

Business Secrets of the Rap Moguls, by Dr. Richard W. Oliver's, cultural history and business advice, was sold to John Oakes at Thunder's Mouth, by Scott Hoffman and Peter Miller at PMA literary & Film Management.

Life in Beige: Coming Into My Own in Multiracial America. television journalist J. Eliott Lewis's memoir on racial self-identity, was sold to Don Weise at Avalon, by Audra Barrett at Barrett Books.

Precious Williams's untitled memoir from a journalist, on growing up in England, was sold to Alexandra Pringle at Bloomsbury, by Nina Collins at Collins McCormick.

Caille Millner, a 25-year-old journalist in San Jose, California. sold an untitled memoir about racial identity, to Scott Moyers at Penguin Press, by Frank R. Scatoni at Venture Literary.

Brian Copeland, a radio host and comic, has sold his memoir Not a Genuine Black Man, about his youth in a nearly all-white suburb, to Mark Chalit at Hyperion, for six figures with the help of Amy Rennert at the Amy Rennert Agency.

Joe Massengale and the Massengale Brothers will offer Six Lessons for Six Sons: The Joe Massengale Way, as told to David Clow, with a Foreword by George Foreman, distilling advice based on Joe's journey from East Texas sharecropper to successful Beverly Hills landscaper. The book was sold to Julia Pastore at Harmony, by Adam Chromy at Artists and Artisans.

For more Deals, log on to www.bibookreview.com.

Sources for Deals include Publishers" Marketplace.

Angela P. Dodson: E-mail your news to Angela4bibr@aol.com