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Voila! A Paperback Deal!

Roger Donald’s Cheering Squad

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Agents don’t usually conduct auctions in front of an audience, but there’s a first time for everything.

It happened that Heiress, the breakout mainstream novel by my agency’s client, romance novelist Janet Dailey, was scheduled for hardcover publication in January 1987. Although so-called hard-soft deals, in which the publisher acquires both hardcover and mass market paperback rights, were becoming standard in the industry, Dailey’s publisher, Little, Brown, did not own a mass market paperback house to partner with. They were therefore obliged to auction those rights off to the seven or eight paperback publishers that existed at the time.

The closing date for bids was June 12, 1986, which happened to be my son’s fourth birthday. My wife Leslie and I had already planned a party in our apartment for Charlie’s friends and classmates. As a special treat, we hired a magician. Changing the party date was unthinkable, so I stayed home for the occasion and told Roger Donald, Little, Brown’s publisher of adult trade books, to call and report progress on the bidding.

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The party got under way, typically chaotic and boisterous, but when the magician began his performance the kids sat as still as four year olds can sit.

Just as he was tapping his wand on his hat, our phone rang. I rushed into the bedroom to pick it up (this was the pre-cell era). It was Roger. “We have an opening bid,” he said excitedly. “Fawcett.”

“How much?”

“Four hundred thousand!”

At that very moment the magician must have pulled something out of his hat, for the children shrieked: “WOWWWW!!!!”

“What was that?” said Roger. Before I could explain he rang off to take another call. A few minutes later, as the magician was pulling a silk scarf out of my son’s ear, he called back.

“Warner, eight hundred!”

“OOOOOHHHH!!!!” cried the children, as if on cue.

ROGER: “What is going on?”

ME: “Well, you see, today happens to be…”

ROGER: “Oops, there’s my other phone.” He hung up abruptly.

A few minutes later the phone rang, and again I rushed into the bedroom.

ROGER: “Bantam, one million five!”

CHILDREN: “WHOOOOOO!”

ROGER: “What the hell?”

ME: “Can’t talk to you now. The magician. . .”

ROGER: “Magician?”

I rushed back to the party just in time to see Charlie lifting the lid off a platter. The phone rang. I ran into the bedroom and carried the phone to the doorway so I could see the trick. I picked up the receiver. “I closed with Fawcett! One million eight!” Roger shouted deliriously. . . at the very moment that a white dove fluttered up from the platter!

“YAYYYYY!!!!” the children exploded, clapping wildly.

After I finally explained to Roger, he said “I’m going to go to lunch on that story.” And he did, with me as his first guest.

The deal for Heiress was worth about five million in today’s money, and it went on to hit the Number One slot on the New York Times bestseller list.

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Special Thanks to Leslie Tonner Curtis for conjuring a forty year old photo album.

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