Comedian Shows His Serious Side

With a wildly popular TV show (“Home Improvement”) and nothing to gain from awkward revelations, you’ve got to admire Tim Allen for dishing out some frank, often sobering tales of prison life in his new book of otherwise comic observations, “Don’t Stand Too Close to a Naked Man” (Hyperion).

As many already know, Allen did time for selling drugs. “Prison was the worst and the best thing that ever happened to me,” he writes. “It taught me in no uncertain terms to be responsible for my own actions.” It’s also “a place where lunacy works. . . .”

“One guy I met actually denied that he’d robbed the bank even though he was caught at the teller’s window with a ski mask on and a shotgun in his hand. . . . As for me, let’s be honest. I didn’t do anything. I wasn’t even there when the cops busted me. I was at my house, watching ‘Home Improvement.’ I was framed! I didn’t do it!”

First printing? Try 600,000 copies.

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Author Strikes Gold: Clive Cussler, the best-selling author of “Raise the Titanic” and the more recent “Inca Gold,” has concluded one of the richest publishing deals in recent years--$14 million for his next two books.

Peter Lampack, his New York literary agent, announced Tuesday that Simon & Schuster will pay the sum for U.S. and Canadian rights to the books.

HarperCollins offered $17.5 million for worldwide English-language rights, Lampack added. But the author preferred to continue his relationship with Simon & Schuster and expects to make up much of the difference through a separate contract with HarperCollins for English-language rights abroad.

Although book deals vary because they generally cover different territories and ancillary elements such as audio rights, in raw numbers the Cussler agreement resembles the three-book, $21-million contract that British novelist Jeffrey Archer reportedly cut with HarperCollins in August.

The Cussler contract appears to pay him more than the advances won by Mary Higgins Clark in 1992 and Ken Follett this year, but less than the mega-deals signed during the past few years by horror master Stephen King and romance writer Barbara Taylor Bradford.

Cussler, 63, a native of Illinois who grew up in Southern California and once ran a gas station, may be a byline familiar only to those who favor intricately plotted adventures.

However, the sale of more than 60 million of his books in 30 languages reflects the enduring commercial appeal of his fictional action hero--Dirk Pitt, an Air Force major who works with an underwater salvage company--and underscores the importance of a franchise author to leading publishers.

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Buzz on Cool: “Cool is not the same thing as hot. Being the flavor of the month is a fine thing, but when it comes to cool, staying power is finer.”

With this definition of L.A. cool, Buzz magazine presents the Buzz 100 in the October issue (on sale Sept. 27).

Among the 100 coolest people in town are cover boy John Malkovich and cine-legend Billy Wilder, Variety columnist Army Archerd and youthful TV star Sara Gilbert, James Garner and David Hockney. Funny man Albert Brooks is cool because “he doesn’t need an audience.” The 4-year-old L.A. magazine soon will raise (from 70,000) to 80,000 the circulation guaranteed to advertisers as it also looks into switching from monthly to biweekly frequency and launching its own imprint with a trade book publisher.

Meanwhile, the October book invites readers to order the premiere issue of Buzz Quarterly (“New Fiction From Los Angeles and Beyond”), which will be out in the spring.

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Afterwords: Some ink-related jottings in “The 1994 Salary Survey,” a cover story in this week’s New York magazine:

An associate editor at Farrar, Straus & Giroux (a coveted book-publishing job) earns $22,500; staff writer at the Daily News, $45,000; New York Times Publisher Arthur O. Sulzberger Jr., $586,589, and Harper’s Bazaar Editor Liz Tilberis, $1.25 million. . . .

* Paul D. Colford’s column is published Fridays.