HUNGER WAR GOES BY THE INSTA-BOOK

“Happy Hands!” said the bookstore clerk.

He rang up another $7.20 for a copy of the official Hands Across America commemorative paperback, assuring the customer that the notation on the cover was correct:

“The profits from the sales of this book will be used to combat hunger and homelessness in the USA.”

A few feet away from the steadily ringing cash register, Dudley Moore and Ken Kragen sat at a folding card table, signing book after book. They spoke of ending hunger, giving shelter to the destitute and feeling good about it all.

Their message was clear: Buy a book, meet a celebrity and indirectly feed the homeless and hungry with the price paid for a few memories of that May 25 moment, when an estimated 5.5 million Americans stood in the Hands Across America line.

In addition to the celebrity presence, the Beverly Center bookstore made the trade-sized picture paperback even more attractive by offering a 15% discount on the $7.95 list price.

When the hour of signing ended, B. Dalton had sold 65 books--respectable as book signings go. If the remaining 82,935 in the first printing sell, Pocketbooks will print more. It is in that hope that Marty Rogol, executive director of Kragen’s USA for Africa Foundation, will begin a two-month national tour next week, promoting the book and the cause of Hands Across America. The transcontinental mega-event was a project of USA for Africa, which also sponsored last year’s hugely successful “We Are the World” superstar record and video.

Though the book has been out a month, what sales it has enjoyed have been primarily in the heartland, Hands officials said. It has yet to catch on on either coast, they acknowledged.

If “Hands Across America: The Official Record Book” is like previously published pop charity paperbacks, it could be a year or more before any of the profits actually are distributed to charity.

According to USA for Africa press spokesman David Fulton, the $5.95 paperback “We Are the World,” published last year by the Perigee Books division of Putnam Publishing Group, sold 177,000 copies. The 64-page book featured black-and-white photos and commentary on the all-star recording session of “We Are the World” and carried a message on its cover similar to that on the “Hands Across America” book: Profits would be used for African famine relief.

So far, the USA for Africa Foundation has received $80,243.50 in royalties from Perigee, Fulton said.

“There’ll definitely be more coming in I would think,” he added.

Post-event insta-books, which have become integral parts of the pop charity phenomenon that began 18 months ago with Band Aid and USA for Africa, have not proven to be as profitable as record sales or concerts.

The $9.95 “Live Aid World-Wide Concert Book” book issued last November has generated no revenue for the foundation yet, even though ticket sales, T-shirt revenues and direct donations have raised more than $100 million for African famine relief.

“The deal was not on a per-book basis,” said Live Aid Foundation treasurer Jeff Benjamin. “They cover the cost of the book first and then we would get the surplus. If a lot of books are sold, we could receive a windfall. If they don’t cover their costs, we wouldn’t get anything at all.”

A magazine advertisement for the Live Aid book went so far as to proclaim, “This book is a meal.” The 192-page paperback, published by Unicorn Publishing House of Parsippany, N.J., was pictured in a ceramic bowl to emphasize the message that all profits would go “directly to the relief of famine in Africa.”

So far, said Benjamin, Live Aid has received no royalties from Unicorn.

Unicorn Vice President Joe Scrocco told The Times that the book has ceased to sell many copies in the nation’s bookstores. He confirmed that all profits after expenses would go to Live Aid, but said he did not have sales figures or publishing costs available.

A Unicorn spokeswoman said Monday that projected proceeds as of Dec. 31, 1986, should come to $300,000 in the United States and $1 million outside the United States. She said that all of the $1.3 million would eventually be contributed to the Live Aid Foundation in the United States and the Band Aid Trust in England.

“Whatever we don’t sell by January we’ll forget because that’ll be the end of the cycle,” Scrocco said. “Like (Live Aid founder Bob) Geldof says, you can’t keep doing this thing for no money forever. It really isn’t that we don’t want to sell any more books. It’s just that we’ve done this thing and that’s it.”

Fulton said USA for Africa’s deal with Simon & Schuster Inc., the parent company of Pocketbooks, would probably generate $2 per “Hands” book. If the book is purchased by mail directly from the USA for Africa Foundation rather than at a bookstore, between $4 and $4.50 would go to the homeless and hungry cause cited on the cover, he said.