Morrow, Avon Are Quite the Big Spenders

It doesn’t get much sweeter for an author than to hear publishing houses are laying down bid after rising bid for his next book. So it was for Bill Geist, the redheaded humorist on the CBS newsmagazine “Sunday Morning.” In an auction that lasted three days last month, representatives of seven publishers phoned the writer’s agent, Tom Connor, in hopes of locking up Geist’s planned book about turning 50.

Bidding went into the fifth round. Random House dropped out at $550,000. In the end, William Morrow & Co. won the prize, offering $650,000.

Three years after Hearst Corp. came close to selling its floundering Hearst Book Group--Morrow and Avon Books--the parent company has signaled to agents and authors that it is committed to rebuilding the two publishers. As a result, Morrow and Avon have become the talk of the book business, writing large checks and displaying newfound aggressiveness in the heated competition for writers and product. Seeking to rebound from the loss of established authors such as Ken Follett, John Irving, Joseph Wambaugh and Joy Fielding, who moved to other publishers amid uncertainty about Morrow, the book group is lining up high-profile inventory and expanding its operation after a year in which estimated sales exceeded $150 million.

Rob Weisbach, a hot 30-year-old editor at Bantam Books, where he shepherded megasellers by comedians Jerry Seinfeld and Paul Reiser, was lured to Morrow in December and given his own imprint. Rob Weisbach Books recently signed Reiser--for a reported $5 million--to write a book about parenthood.

Another seven-figure advance was obtained from Morrow by Petru Popescu for “Almost Adam,” his novel about the discovery of a young protohuman primate in Kenya.

In addition, Publishers Weekly reports this week that Morrow prevailed in another auction, agreeing to pay $450,000 to the family of Ronald Goldman for a book about their ordeal after he was slain with Nicole Brown Simpson.

Avon, the nation’s second-oldest publisher of paperbacks, will follow the lead of Bantam, Ballantine and Pocket Books when it adds a line of hardcovers in the fall. And it has cut seven-figure deals with Mark Sullivan, whose next novel will be “The Purification Ceremony,” and actress Cybill Shepherd for her autobiography.

The surge of activity has prompted more than a little snickering among competitors. One executive scoffed that Morrow is but the latest “pigeon” to throw money around to attract literary agents who may have overlooked the publisher since its aborted sale. The thrust of the second-guessing is that the acquisitions are not worth the riches that Morrow and Avon are paying.

Geist, for example, had a bestseller with “Little League Confidential,” a hilarious account of his coaching experiences, but his last book, a collection of pieces titled “Monster Trucks & Hair-in-a-Can,” sold below expectations after G.P. Putnam’s Sons published it in 1994.

William Wright, president and chief executive officer of the Hearst Book Group since June, said Geist’s newest proposal “was superb, and the book fits all the demographic trends, so there’s a clear market for it. We have a lot of confidence.”

Shepherd, star of CBS’ “Cybill,” has proven to be, like Candice Bergen, not just another attractive blond but a blond with comic gifts and a devoted audience. Nevertheless, more and more Hollywood autobiographies, such as those by Burt Reynolds, Mary Tyler Moore, Marlon Brando and Kelsey Grammer, have been big-ticket disappointments. Why would Morrow pay Shepherd more than $1 million?

According to Wright, Morrow wanted Shepherd’s manuscript “because we believe that the information in that book will be of enormous appeal to the public, and we also think the information will receive a lot of media attention.” Apparently Shepherd, who came to prominence as a magazine cover girl, will delve into her former relationship with director Peter Bogdanovich and her four seasons opposite Bruce Willis on TV’s “Moonlighting.”

Wright says he has heard some of the expressed doubts about the level of spending at Morrow and Avon. “More often than not, it’s simply a case of sour grapes,” he said. “In at least three of every four cases, we have bailed out of auctions for books in which other publishers went much higher than we did.”

Afterwords: The April issue of Interview presents a loving tribute to its founder, the late Andy Warhol, described in an essay by editor-in-chief Ingrid Sischy as “an artist who changed American culture”. . . .

* Times Books, a division of Random House, plans to collect and publish next month the recent series of articles in the New York Times about the downsizing of American business. The book will also contain new material. . . .

* With only one black actor numbered among the 166 nominees for Academy Awards, People magazine--yes, People--skips the celebrity puffery this week and offers a hard-hitting cover story chronicling what it calls Hollywood’s “continued exclusion of African Americans . . . a national disgrace.”

* Paul D. Colford is a columnist for Newsday. His column is published Thursdays.