Toronto-raised author Susan Casey, who now lives in New York City, has signed a million-dollar deal for a new book about the science of surfing and the quest of top surfers to master ever-bigger waves. And she’s enlisted some professional help. As The New York Times reports, Casey

is paying Laird Hamilton, the celebrity surfer who will be a central character in her book, to put her at the center of the action.

“I’m asking him to put me in the middle of his dangerously and logistically complex undertaking,” said Ms. Casey, whose previous book, The Devil’s Teeth, was about great white sharks. “It was inevitable that we would have to have some kind of incentive for him to do that.”

It’s an unusual arrangement, but not one-of-a-kind. As the Times article notes, other authors have shared money with subjects before, though it does run the risk of complicating the relationship between writer and subject. For her part, Casey tells the Times “that she retained full editorial control of the book,” which is tentatively titled “100: Stalking the Giants of the Ocean.”

Quillblog was amused to see that this bit slipped past the Times editors:

Although The Devil’s Teeth sold just 36,000 copies in hardcover, according to Nielsen BookScan, which tracks about 70 percent of book sales, it was a New York Times nonfiction hardcover best seller.

Nothing like jabbing at the credibility of your own bestseller listings.