Word: auctioner
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...machine, but Subsidiary Rights Director Irene Webb, 30, and her colleagues were not leaving their desks. June 15, 1978, was a day for executive field rations. Since 9:30 a.m. Webb's ear had been grafted to her telephone, accepting bids for what ended as the most expensive paperback auction in publishing history: $2.2 million for the rights to reprint Mario Puzo's new novel, Fools Die, plus $350,000 to reprint his alltime bestselling saga, The Godfather. The previous record price, $1.9 million, was paid for Colleen McCullough's Australian sheep opera, The Thorn Birds, now playing beach blankets...
...literally a day for the books. In addition to the Puzo package, Koster was chasing rights to publish works by Franz Kafka. She was outbid by Pocket Books, who paid $210,000. The Prague pension clerk would have been fascinated by the rituals of a modern paperback auction. He had envisioned the adrenal new world in his novel Amerika. But could he have imagined that he would be in six figures...
...settle for a 50-50 arrangement. The novelist expects to take his $1.5 million share in chunks spread over five years. With 10% going to his agent and approximately half of the rest for taxes, he should eventually pocket at least $500,000 from the record $2,550,000 auction...
...hyperthyroid auction era arrived in 1972, when Avon Books spent $1 million for Thomas Harris' I'm Okay, You 're Okay. Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein's All the President's Men sold for $1 million in 1974; two years later their The Final Days fetched $1,550,000. Other notable $1 million-plus books include Erich Segal's Oliver's Story ($1,410,000), E.L. Doctorow's Ragtime ($1,850,000), Dorothy Uhnak's The Investigation ($1,595,000), William Safire's Full Disclosure ($1,375,000) and McCullough's phenomenal The Thorn Birds, which nearly broke...
...season can be found outside the West End's Prince Edward Theater. Just before curtain time each night, a mini-mob scene unfolds. Bejeweled women-British, American and Arab-pile out of Silver Shadow limos with Savile Row-suited escorts in tow. Sleazy-looking scalpers with cockney accents auction off their wares to desperate millionaires. Sad-faced teen-agers stare dolefully at the crowd, hoping that they might somehow crash the Prince Edward's lobby. No such luck. Only ticket holders are allowed past the theater's tuxedoed doormen, and the show is sold out until late...