Again, apologies loyal readers. Book Boy has been away on an emotional sabbatical - more dark, dark nights of the soul, more heartache. But this time, he's back for good!
So Keith Richards has sold the rights to his autobiography, for approximately $7.8 million. Not too shabby, eh? The joke going around is whether or not the Stoned guitarist will remember anything. But that doesn't matter as memoirs are normally a pack of self-serving lies anyway. Not only that, will Keef even be alive by 2010 to deliver the book?
But the real question is can Little, Brown and Weidenfeld ever hope to earn back that advance. I'm not too sure. Despite the obvious tabloidy interest that it will generate, the Stones fanbase isn't as large as it was. Do these big money celebrity books ever earn? It would be interesting to take a gander at Random's balance sheet to see if Bill Clinton ever came close to earning back the $12m that Knopf paid him.
In the end, though, it's probably not about making money with these big name celeb titles. It is prestige and proving that you can outbid the next guy. The publishing equivalent to a pissing match.
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