After war, the book deals thrive

As the war winds down in Iraq, book proposals are on the rise.

“I have heard from about half a dozen agents who are representing embedded reporters, but my fear is they’re all going to be writing the same story,” David Hirshey, vice president and executive editor of HarperCollins, said Tuesday.

Still, Hirshey found at least one proposal that appealed to him. HarperCollins has reached a six-figure deal with Newsday correspondent Matt McAllester, who was held in Iraq during the war as a suspected spy. “Blinded by the Sunlight” is scheduled for a spring 2004 release.

“I think my deal will open the floodgates,” Hirshey said.

Richard Perle, a Pentagon consultant and leading advocate for the U.S.-led invasion, is working on a book about the future of the war against terrorism. Co-written by former Bush speechwriter David Frum, the currently untitled book is to be published by Random House early next year.

Christopher Hitchens, whose support for the war led him to quit his job as a columnist for the liberal weekly the Nation, has a book coming out this summer. “A Long Short War: The Postponed Liberation of Iraq” will be published by Plume, a division of Penguin Putnam.

“We’re getting proposals on all sorts of subjects that are related to the war: How to keep yourself safe against terrorism, books on financial and health strategy,” said Trena Keating, Plume’s editor in chief.

In 2005, Scribner expects to publish Andrew Carroll’s “Behind the Lines,” a history of letters written during wartime dating back to the American Revolution and including the current conflict in Iraq.

Seven Stories Press, a leading publisher of antiwar books, has three works coming out within the next couple of months: “Power Trip,” essays by a variety of authors about “the new U.S. unilateralism”; Rahul Mahajan’s “Full Spectrum Dominance: U.S. Power in Iraq and Beyond”; and “You Back the Attack! We’ll Bomb Who We Want,” a compilation of satirical posters with an introduction by Kurt Vonnegut.