‘Red’ Author’s Next Book Will Be Very Green

Writer Tom Clancy, whose best-selling thrillers have made him the author laureate of the defense community, reportedly has sold his next novel for more than $10 million, perhaps the most ever for a single book.

The Baltimore-born author, reached at his home in Calvert County, Md., would not confirm the figure but referred to it alternately as “this absurd amount of money” and “really, really nice.”

His agent was less understated: “This is the deal of the century,” said Robert Gottlieb of the William Morris agency.

Recent published reports say that other houses have been wooing Clancy with offers of more than $10 million for the book, Clancy’s sixth, leading insiders to speculate that Putnam-Berkley got him by agreeing to an amount in excess of that.

Gottlieb hinted that the signing price was greater than other recent deals, such as the more than $30 million Stephen King reportedly received for his next four books and Jean Auel’s rumored $25 million to $30 million for three books.

With the big money, though, comes big expectations, Clancy said.

“You have to create a--what is the figure they’re saying--$10-million book,” Clancy said. “There is a certain degree of pressure that attaches itself.”

The book is due March 1, 1991, Clancy said. Putnam expects to have it on the shelves by that summer.

“I’m at the fiddling around stage,” Clancy said. “I have my own way of working. I work into it gradually, then the last two, three months, I work frantically.”

The untitled book will continue the adventures of CIA operative Jack Ryan, doing “the usual, trying to keep the world safe,” he said.

Astonishingly enough, Clancy published his first book, “The Hunt for Red October,” a mere six years ago. And for a mere $5,000 paid by the tiny, Annapolis, Md.-based Naval Institute Press.

That book, recently made into the current hit movie, is No. 1 on The New York Times paperback best-seller list. His most recent book, “Clear and Present Danger,” was the top seller last year at 1.6 million copies.