"Royalties? They Don't Got to Pay Him No Stinking Royalties"

You'll laugh. You'll cry. You'll kiss $250,000 goodbye

Here's an interesting side note concerning John Kerry's 2003 taxes as given by Byron York on John Kerry's Tax Returns on National Review Online

Kerry also reported $89,220 in royalties from his campaign autobiography, A Call to Service: My Vision for a Better America, published last October by Viking Press

The use of the word "royalties" might lead some people to think this refers to actual sales of Kerry's book, but it doesn't. In this context, for a book published last October, the 89K would represent either the last half of an "advance against royalties" from Viking, or the last third of such an advance. It is, in the case of campaign biographies, most likely the latter since campaign “Vision” books have a long history of being dogs from pub. date to remainder bin. This is somewhat confirmed by the fact that Kerry's book is 5,696 in the Amazon sales rankings as of this writing; a shabby showing for the standard bearer of a major party that is currently driving several tomes onto the bestseller lists.

So, how much did Viking pay Kerry for this dog? It’s not readily known, but I'd say the likely figure would be $250,000 to $300,000 as an advance.

Here's the back of the envelope calculation:

Kerry was the first to get a Presidential Vision book signed in late 2002. (Source: Publishers Weekly) Kerry gets two payments once the book is signed. One on signing and one on delivery and acceptance. Except in rare cases it takes publishers a minimum of one year to put a book into the stores. This places the signing payment for the book in 2002.

Two payments of $89K equal $178,000. But before he gets that his agent, Helen Rees of Boston, would have taken 15% of the gross. (I once knew Helen and I can assure you that -- her staunch liberal views notwithstanding -- she would not cut her commission for a mere Democratic Senator from Massachusetts.) That would mean that his original advance had to be north of $210,000.

How far north? Well, that would depend on how much John paid the ghost writer that Helen probably hooked him up with. You don’t think John F. Kerry sat down and banged out My Vision for a Better America on his battered Underwood portable that he hauled through the mud, the blood and the beer of Vietnam, do you?

Nope. It would have to be a ghost and I’m guessing a ghost that had to sit down, take dictation from the senator’s aides, cut and paste from the Senator’s bloviations of the last few decades, and take a meet-and-greet with the Senator for perhaps 10 minutes of a Sunday, would want to see at least $50,000 for pain and suffering. So drop that in the kettle and I’m estimating that a person of Senator Kerry’s distinction, wealth, and position inside the Bos/Wash social scene would find anything less than a sum between $250,000 and $300,000 an insult to himself and the “party of the poor people.” Unless, of course, his wife paid the ghost from her own funds.

At a $300,000 advance, Kerry’s vision would have to have a net hardcopy sale of around 82,000 copies. Highly unlikely unless he gets elected, in which case it is only sort of unlikely.

So, while the math here is only general, I’d say that Penguin/Putnam/Viking is looking at a loss of around $200,000. Which is, in a manner of speaking, like saying the publisher just donated $200,000 to Kerry -- who could use the money. Not to the candidate, but to the man. But that’s okay, Susan Peterson Kennedy, one of the heads of the house knew this going in. In fact, they all knew it going in. That’s the way things are done when you sign up a Presidential candidates standard thumb-sucker early in the pre-dawn hours of a Presidential run.

The real fun is not in the loss but in the feeling of power that comes with publishing a known loser for “the greater good.” The joy in being a publisher such as Susan Peterson Kennedy comes from picking winners and she's good at it. But the power of being a publisher such as Susan Peterson Kennedy comes from choosing the losers.

That most books will be losers is not a secret. All book editors and publishers know that going it. The power thrill comes from deciding which books, as above, will be the losers. And publishers and editors don't always choose them on their potential commercial merits. At times they choose them based on what the books’ authors can do for the editors and publisher socially. Susan Peterson Kennedy has a number of noble causes she is associated with and is much to be admired for it. Chief among these is Human Rights Watch where Peterson is very active in women’s rights issues. Not so strangely, since birds of a feather flock together, a notable donor to Human Rights Watch is the Tides Foundation, which, of course, gets a large share of its funding from the various Heinz foundations.

Factor that it and it is a win all around for this small publishing investment of few hundred grand. Kerry benefits to the tune of a couple hundred grand in spending money. Viking (now that Kerry is the heir anointed or, as he will come to be know “JFK Lite,”) benefits by have the new leader of the Democratic Party on its list. Susan Peterson Kennedy benefits since it binds the Kerrys’ closer to her pet projects at Human Rights Watch. An agent gets a commission. A ghost writer gets a job. The book printers of America get work. And nobody really has to read the book. What’s not to like?

Posted by Vanderleun at April 14, 2004 9:09 AM | TrackBack