roundtable: Re: Back to the Future Robber Baron Days

roundtable: Re: Back to the Future Robber Baron Days

Re: Back to the Future Robber Baron Days

Jeff Porten (porten@pobox.upenn.edu)
Mon, 2 Jan 1995 04:09:43 -0500 (EST) 

From: porten@pobox.upenn.edu (Jeff Porten)
Message-Id: <199501020909.EAA11197@pobox.upenn.edu>
Subject: Re: Back to the Future Robber Baron Days
To: roundtable@cni.org
Date: Mon, 2 Jan 1995 04:09:43 -0500 (EST)
In-Reply-To: <9412311422.AA05877@a.cni.org> from "W. Curtiss Priest" at Jan 1, 95 09:42:16 pm


Far be it from me to be a Gingrinch sympathizer, but the retraction
from the $4.5M advance to a $1 advance does put him back on ethical
ground.

There is quite simply almost no chance that a $4.5M advance would ever
earn out; such an offer from a publisher is almost certainly an offer
to lose money on a particular book in the hope that carrying that book
on its list would boost sales for the rest of the list.  In this
light, there is certainly room to see a cozy deal between Rupert
Murdoch and Gingrich; since Murdoch stands to lose a large amount of
money on the book, and (more importantly) since no other author could
pull that kind of advance, it looks to be a deal that buys off the
Speaker of the House.

With a $1 advance, everything changes; Gingrich only makes the amount
of money that he earns by selling books.  That's perfectly proper; as
Newt pointed out, there's a long history of sitting Congresspersons
selling books.

Of course, the rapid backtrack does not ameliorate entirely the
ethical lapse shown in agreeing to this in the first place, but I'm
willing to give him points for eventually coming around to the right
thing.  Additional sniping from the left on this will only make our
side look more cantankerous and unwilling to compromise.


Jeff Porten
Millennium Consulting
<porten@pobox.upenn.edu>

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