Dear Author: Romance Book Reviews, Author Interviews, and Commentary

Sadly what could have provided salacious gossip in the publishing world for months is put to bed. Judith Regan and HarperCollins have put away their litigation swords for an undisclosed sum of money and a sort of apology.

“After carefully considering the matter, we accept Ms. Regan’s position that she did not say anything that was anti-Semitic in nature, and further believe that Ms. Regan is not anti-Semitic.”

Via Media Cat

Jose Conseco’s next book tentatively titled, Vindicated, has lost its ghostwriter/editor. Don Yaeger, a former Sports Illustrated writer, has passed on the project believing that there isn’t enough there to form a book.

Conseco’s first book, Juiced published by Judith Regan of the former Regan Books imprint, set off a firestorm within baseball when Conseco tore the curtain away that hid baseball’s dirty secret: years of high profile players taking performance enhancing drugs.

Not one player who was named in Conseco’s original book ever sued him for defamation and almost all of his allegations (if not all) were born out as truth in subsequent proceedings. (Who can forget Rafael Palmeiro standing before Congress and stating, under oath, that he never took steroids?)

Vindicated is supposedly going to expose Alex Rodriguez in some manner but the majority of baseball fans think he’s an ass already so perhaps Yaeger didn’t want to add to the pile on.

Via ESPN.

The book world is abuzzing with the complaint filed by Judith Regan, former head of Regan Publishing, a division of HarperCollins. No one can deny that Regan was a success. In her complaint, she alleges that she generated over $1B in sales. Fifteen of Regan’s books were NYT Bestsellers with five of them being in the number 1 slot.

But her success began unraveling with the backlash over the O.J. Simpson hypothetical confessional, If I Did It. Regan took the blame even though Rupert Murdoch’s signature was on the contract as well. Regan was subsequently fired over claims that she made anti-Semetic remarks.

The suit alleges breach of contract, sex discrimination, retaliation as well as accusations that Friedman, president and CEO of HarperCollins engaged in a calculated and defamatory smear campaign. She claims that the anti-Semetic claims were “fabricated”. (For some reason I thought someone had an audio recording of this?).

She also accuses NewsCorp of forcing her to lie about her affair with Bernard B Kerik during the vetting process of his nomination for homeland security secretary in 2004. Kerik later withdrew his name from the nominating hat by confessing to …

Beaufort Books has the print and distribution rights to the semi fictional autobiography by OJ Simpson entitled, If I Did It. The Goldman family agreed to a deal for an undisclosed sum with Beaufort a few days ago. Beaufort would be considered a Vanity Press by some since it publishes books that require monetary investment by the author. The Goldman family agent, Sharlene Martin, maintains that this book deal, though, is a traditional one.

Martin says that the deal is about taking money from OJ Simpson, “not about making money for the Goldmans.” I am not sure that is technically accurate as the judge awarded the Goldman family the rights to the book a few months ago. The Goldman family did not have to publish this book at all.

"I think when the general public reads this book they will completely understand why this book had to be published under this scenario and not the other scenario,� Martin said.

I guess we’ll see, won’t we?

The Goldman’s were awarded the rights to OJ Simpson’s fictional biopic entitled “If I Did It.” Judith Regan had originally bought the book, hired the ghostwriter, and then got axed for the bad business decision of trying to publish it. Now the Goldman’s are shopping it around again, and I’m certain some publisher will pick it up and it will sell lots of books.

Via Publisher’s Weekly.

The right to publish If I Did It by OJ Simpson will be auctioned publicly and the proceeds will go directly to the Ronald L. Goldman family. If a publishing house does not buy the rights, Goldman’s family “will buy it and lock it up” according to the New York Times report.

Via Shelf Awareness.

There is a fascinating article at New York Magazine about Judith Regan and how she became to be the fall person for the OJ Simpson debacle. The author, Vanessa Grigoriadis, seems to have some personal connection with Regan and admits to finding her likeable. The article provides interesting backstory to Regan’s career and suggests that the firing of Regan was the result of Jane Friedman finally ridding herself of a profitable but dangerous rival.

During Friedman’s tenure at Harper Collins, HC has shown record profits. Apparently, much of this can be attributed to Judith Regan’s frontlist. 15 of Judith Regan’s titles have been NYT bestsellers and five have been No. 1s.

Other tidbits include the facts surrounding the OJ Simpson book. We know from the contract papers that were part of the Goldman lawsuit that Jane Friedman signed off on the book, but the NY Mag article shows that Rupert Murdoch had signed off on it as well.

Regan, in the article, appears to be sincere in the desire to publish this book for the purposes of obtaining a confession. During the interview that was not aired, OJ Simpson reveals himself …

HarperCollins announced that its Regan Books imprint will be eliminated. As of March 1, 2007, all Regan books will display the HC logo. Via Media Bistro.

Even after HarperCollins officially pulled the plug on the OJ Simpson fabled tell all, If I Did It, and all 400,000 copies (except the stolen ones and ones inadvertentlys shipped) are slated to be destroyed, TIME reports that OJ will be getting the rights to this story sometime in 2007. European publishers are said to be interested especially because of Murdoch’s rejection. Via MediaBistro.

According to Variety, Judith Regan, who was fired on Friday night of last week, is filing a suit seeking at least, the balance of compensation owed under her contract. Via Media Bistro.

If you missed it, Monday opened with swirling allegations that Regan was fired for anti-semitic remarks.