Deals

Actress and author Carol Burnett has landed a book deal with Simon & Schuster to publish Carrie and Me: A Mother-Daughter Love Story. The memoir will explore her “relationship with her daughter Carrie Hamilton, an actress and writer who died of cancer in 2002 at the age of 38.”

Phyllis Wender of The Gersh Agency negotiated the deal with executive editor Trish Todd. The book will be released in April 2013. Burnett published This Time Together: Laughter and Reflection (pictured) in 2010 with Crown Publishing Group’s Harmony Books imprint.

Here’s more from the release: “The memoir recounts Burnett’s memories of raising her oldest child, including Hamilton’s struggle with and recovery from drug addiction as a teenager, their co-writing of the Broadway production “Hollywood Arms,” and Hamilton’s fight with cancer.  The book includes Carol Burnett’s personal diary entries and a story Hamilton was writing shortly before she died, entitled ‘Sunrise in Memphis.’”

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Houghton Mifflin Harcourt has acquired the eBook rights to “We Can Remember it For You Wholesale,” the short story by the late Philip K. Dick that inspired the Total Recall movie in 1990 and an upcoming remake (trailer embedded above).

The Wylie Agency negotiated the deal with publisher Bruce Nichols.

The publisher will release a tie-in version of the story (entitled Total Recall) in time for the remake’s August release . Len Wiseman directed the August 2012 film that stars Colin Farrell, Kate Beckinsale and Jessica Biel.

Harlan Ellison will republish a long out of print collection of pulpy short stories with Kicks Books at the end of the month.

Pulling a Train was originally published in 1959 as Sex Gang, “a brown-paper wrapper collection of his men’s magazine stories” written under the name Paul Merchant. This early “juvenile delinquent fiction” is a quite different than the speculative fiction that built Ellison’s career. Check it out:

For the lively set, prepare to blast into orbit with blade-wielding ferocity as Ellison takes you into a cobblestone wilderness fraught with hate and violence, a street level cosmos where shadowy creatures are hard, and blunt, and malicious, and where hope hangs a shingle that reads, “GET LOST”. In the realm of 1950′s juvenile delinquent fiction, it was Ellison who dragged the unnamed genre from the gentle hands of the social workers into a filthy basement, where he worked it over, with great satisfaction, into an alternate universe of hate and pain. Ellison is the king of JD fiction. Of this, there can be no debate.

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Sony Pictures Entertainment will adapt Walter Isaacson‘s bestselling biography of Steve Jobs, with The Social Network screenwriter Aaron Sorkin writing on the script.

Sony Pictures Entertainment co-chairman Amy Pascal had this statement:  “Jobs’ story is unique: he was one of the most revolutionary and influential men not just of our time but of all time. There is no writer working in Hollywood today who is more capable of capturing such an extraordinary life for the screen than Aaron Sorkin; in his hands, we’re confident that the film will be everything that Jobs himself was: captivating, entertaining, and polarizing.”

Mark Gordon, Scott Rudin and Guymon Casady will produce the upcoming biopic.  Deadline Hollywood has the release.

Teaming up with 20th Century Fox, director Ridley Scott and producer Steve Zaillian have acquired the film rights to Wool–a self-published science fiction novel about a dystopian future.

You can read an early draft of Wool at this link. Author Hugh C. Howey (pictured) also landed a book deal with Random House UK this weekend. The former yacht captain published Wool in July 2011, and has since written four more books in the series.

Check it out: “WOOL was picked up by Century, a kick-butt division of Random House, which . . . wait for it . . . also did 50 Shades of Grey. After a 5-way auction that took place during the London Book Fair, Century and Random House came through with the most compelling offer. They addressed every single concern I had with the domestic offers. They appreciate how this was published, how important your involvement has been, and they want to maintain and even emulate those features.” (Via Sarah Weinman)

The beloved Sookie Stackhouse series–the vampire novels behind HBO’s True Blood–will end next year.

Novelist Charlaine Harris made the announcement on Facebook today: “the final Sookie Stackhouse book, Dead Ever After, will be on sale May 2, 2013!” In less than an hour, the post generated more than two thousand “likes” and three hundred comments.

Last year, Harris hinted at the impending end of the series: “I think it’ll be total closure. I don’t go back to things once I’ve finished them. That’s kind of what I do. I don’t want to write Sookie after I get stale.” (Via Jason Pinter)

Pendragon author D.J. MacHale has landed a deal with Penguin Young Readers Group’s Razorbill imprint for a new science-fiction trilogy.

The first book will be released in summer 2013. Razorbill senior editor Laura Arnold negotiated the deal with Richard Curtis of the Richard Curtis Agency. Arnold described the series: “his new trilogy packs a clean punch, blending mystery and sci-fi in an exhilarating and action-packed adventure.”

According to the release, MacHale’s new series stars “Tucker Pierce, a teenager whose tranquil coastal community is invaded by a mysterious branch of the U.S. military called SYLO.”

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Ann Coulter has landed a book deal with Penguin Group’s Sentinel imprint, scheduled to publish an unnamed book “directly relevant to the presidential election” in October.

William Morris Endeavor agent Mel Berger negotiated the deal with Sentinel publisher Adrian Zackheim. The book’s subject will remain “confidential for now,” according to the release.

Jason Pinter added some context to the move: Coulter had previously published her work with Random House’s Crown Forum imprint.

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Joe Muto, a former television producer at Fox News, has landed a memoir deal with Penguin Group (USA)’s Dutton imprint.

Muto, “a self described bleeding heart liberal,” wrote An Atheist in the Foxhole to recount his eight years at Fox which includes his time working with political commentator Bill O’Reilly. The nonfiction title is slated for publication in early 2013. Executive editor Jill Schwartzman oversaw this acquisition and secured world rights.

Here’s more from the release: “Having finally reached a breaking point, Muto decided to leak salacious bits of FoxNews gossip to the ultra-popular website, Gawker. He only lasted only 36 hours as theso-called “Fox Mole” before being discovered and suspended, but in those 36 hours,a record-breaking 8.5 million readers were fascinated by Muto’s bizarre and hilarious stories.”

Novelist Abigail Tarttelin just landed a six-figure book deal with Orion Books UK for the UK and Commonwealth rights to her new book, Golden Boy.

Publication is set for May 2013. Agent Jo Unwin from Conville & Walsh negotiated the deal with Arzu Kahsin, the editor of The Kite Runner and The Tiger’s Wife.

Things didn’t always look this rosy for the young author. She debuted with Flick last year as a 22-year-old novelist, but her UK publisher promptly entered administration, dashing her hopes for a proper release. We caught up with the young novelist to find out more about her story…

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