The mega bucks books
QUESTION What are the biggest book deals of all time?
AMericAN author James Patterson (born 1947) is known for his novels featuring psychologist Alex cross, with titles such as Along came A spider and Kiss The Girls.
Patterson has become a publishing phenomenon. since his first novel, The Thomas Berryman Number, was published in 1976, he has written or co-written 147 novels. Today, he sells an average of 20 million books a year. his prolific output is partially down to the relationship he has with the many co-authors who share an authorship credit on the cover.
These authors, in their agreement with Patterson, don’t disclose the terms of their working relationship, including how much involvement Patterson has in each co-authored book.
Patterson explained the procedure in 2006. The idea is that the co-authors compose ‘first drafts’ based on the elaborate outlines that he sends them.
in 2009, he famously struck a deal with hachette calling for him to produce 17 books by the end of 2012 — 11 for adult readers and six for young adults.
The deal was estimated to be worth at least $150million (about £95million). he earns hachette about $250 million a year.
The largest single individual deal is thought to be that secured by hillary clinton for her 2014 memoir hard choices. it has been estimated that simon & schuster offered her a deal worth $14million for the book, although this has never been officially confirmed.
she’s thought to have received $8 million for her previous book, Living history (2003). her husband, Bill, got rather more than $10 million for his memoir My Life.
hillary’s most recent effort, stronger Together, co-written with her presidential running mate Tim Kaine, had an estimated advance of $8million, but sold fewer than 3,000 copies in its first week.
Away from politics, U.s. comedian Amy schumer secured a $9 million deal for The Girl With The Lower Back Tattoo (2016), a book of autobiographical essays from Gallery Books.
This was a little higher than Britain’s bestselling author J. K. rowling, who netted a reported $8 million (£5.5million) deal with The Little, Brown Book Group, a subsidiary of hachette, for The casual Vacancy, her first novel for adults.
Simon Barnes, Twickenham, Middx.
QUESTION
What is the origin of the word pillock? iN MOderN British english use, a pillock is a stupid person.
The word has profane origins; it’s derived from the slang for penis, a contraction of two words of the same meaning — the Old Norse pill and cock, which was derived from the Latin cuccus, the male domestic fowl.
The oldest written source is from a bawdy poem from the early 14th century: ‘Ye ne may no more of love done, Mi pilkoc pisseth on mi schone.’
By the 16th century the more common term was ‘pillicock’, and by the late 16th century the word had become a bawdy term of endearment: in John Florio’s Worlde Of Wordes, an early dictionary, a ‘pilliocoke’ is defined as ‘a darlin, a beloved lad’.
in 1653, Thomas Urquhart, in his translation of rabelais’s Gargantua And Pantagruel, includes it in a list of affectionate names for the male appendage: ‘One of them would call it her pillicock, her fiddle-diddle, her staff of love, her tickle-gizzard, her gentle-titler.’
The term largely disappeared until it was revived in the mid-20th century with the modern meaning. it was famously used in carol Ann duffy’s memorable poem Mrs icarus (1999): ‘I’m not the first or the last / To stand on a hillock, / Watching the man she married / Prove to the world / He’s a total, utter, absolute, Grade A pillock.’
Mary Gilmore, Bournemouth.
QUESTION
I enjoyed the answer about amusing book credits. Have any fimmakers done something similar? FUrTher to earlier answers, at the beginning of the Fight club dVd, after the copyright warnings, comes: ‘WArNiNG if you are reading this, then this warning is for you. every word you read of this useless fine print is another second off your life.
‘don’t you have other things to do? is your life so empty that you honestly can’t think of a better way to spend these moments? Or are you so impressed with authority that you give respect and credence to all who claim it?
‘do you read everything you’re supposed to read? do you think everything you’re supposed to think? Buy what you’re told you should want?
‘Get out of your apartment. Meet a member of the opposite sex. stop the excessive shopping and masturbation. Quit your job. start a fight. Prove you’re alive. if you don’t claim your humanity you will become a statistic. You have been warned . . . Tyler.’
David Pole, Stratford-upon-Avon