Judith Regan’s $10-million in walking-away money

It emerged this week that Judith Regan – fired from HarperCollins a couple years ago, following the O.J. confessional tome debacle – won $10.75-million in damages in a subsequent lawsuit over her dismissal. Why did this emerge? Because she allegedly didn’t want to pay her lawyers. According to Bloomberg writer Patricia Hurtado:

In its complaint filed in New York Supreme Court in Manhattan, the Dreier law firm alleged Regan retained it to represent her in February 2007 and agreed to pay 25 percent of any money she recovered as a result of a judgment or settlement.

“Regan terminated petitioners for the single purpose of attempting to avoid the contingency fee,” Dreier alleged in its complaint. “Upon finalizing the settlement, Regan terminated” the law firm “and has since failed and refused to pay them the fees and disbursements to which they are entitled.”

Don’t feel too bad for them, though. Late in the piece, Hurtado notes that the head of the law firm in question, Marc Dreier, was just charged with “cheating hedge funds out of more than $100 million.”

Should booksellers buy books “blind?”

Using the new Christopher Ciccone-penned Madonna tell-all as a lead-in, Slate looks at the book-world phenomena of buying books “blind”:

Christopher Ciccone’s new celebrity tell-all, Life With My Sister Madonna, hit store shelves on Tuesday. News reports say that his publisher, Simon Spotlight Entertainment, sold the book (co-written with Wendy Leigh) “blind” to retailers, meaning they purchased the book without knowing the author, the subject matter, or whether it would create a gossip maelstrom. Why would retailers make that gamble?

The piece goes on to posit some answers, but also questions the validity of the practice by pointing out some recent blind purchase disasters, like the O.J. pseudo-confessional If I Did It, which had to be withdrawn. One thing the piece fails to note, however, is that the books are almost always returnable, meaning the risk is a fairly mitigated one.

HarperCollins boss out

In U.S. publishing news, a top-level exec at a major firm has resigned suddenly. No, not Peter Olson at Random House – that was last month. This week, HarperCollins president and CEO Jane Friedman stepped down.

Friedman has been with the firm for more than 10 years, having come over from Knopf. While the New York Times notes that her abrupt departure “stunned colleagues who had no idea it was coming,” HarperCollins was ready with a replacement: Brian Murray was named to the position immediately.

As the Times points out, among the notable episodes of Friedman’s tenure was the 2006 controversy over the O.J. Simpson book If I Did It, and the subsequent firing of Regan Books publisher Judith Regan.

In a complaint filed in a $100 million defamation suit against HarperCollins and Ms. Friedman, Ms. Regan accused Ms. Friedman of being “responsible for the instigation and encouragement of a hostile work environment.” The suit was later settled, but it left some in the industry wondering how bruised Ms. Friedman had been by the episode.

Judith Regan sued by her own former lawyers

From USA Today:

Former book publishing powerhouse Judith Regan was sued Monday for legal fees by the firm that prepared her lawsuit against HarperCollins LLC after the publishing company fired her.

In court papers, Dreier LLP says Regan reneged on a retainer agreement she signed and then fired the law firm “in a transparent and calculated effort to avoid paying petitioners the agreed upon fee.”

We’re about overdue for some positive Judith Regan-themed headlines, aren’t we?

“Regan frees child from burning house”

“Former HarperCollins publisher to circumnavigate globe for charity”

“Regan lauded by colleagues”

Judith Regan settles with former bosses

Judith Regan may be sleazy, but she’s not that sleazy, at least according to Regan’s former bosses at News Corporation, the owners of HarperCollins U.S., where Regan had her own imprint.

According to Yahoo! News, News Corp. has settled a lawsuit with Regan that arose fom her firing in 2006, and has released a statement that says, in part:

“After carefully considering the matter, we accept Ms. Regan’s position that she did not say anything that was anti-Semitic in nature, and further believe that Ms. Regan is not anti-Semitic.”

That’s pretty much the least you’d want your former employers to say about you when you’re gone, isn’t it?

Judith Regan sues News Corp.

Judith Regan, former president of HarperCollins’ ReganBooks division who was fired last year following her controversial plan to publish O.J. Simpson’s If I Did It, is suing HarperCollins’ parent company, News Corp., for $100 million for defamation.

Bloomberg Press reports that Regan’s complaint, filed yesterday, alleges that News Corp. made her a scapegoat for the O.J. Simpson fiasco, fired her without cause, and fabricated stories to discredit her.

Murdoch personally approved the Simpson book and suggested paying $1 million for the project, Regan claims in her suit. When the controversy erupted over the project, the defendants planted false stories in the press to discredit her, Regan said, including one allegation that she was fired because she made anti-Semitic comments and had claimed to be the victim of a “Jewish cabal” in the book industry.

Regan also claims that News Corp. “tried to destroy her reputation because she has information about former New York City Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik that would be harmful to ex-New York Mayor Giuliani and his presidential campaign.”

While not specifying what information she has about Kerik, who she claims had a “personal relationship” with her, Regan said that an unidentified News Corp. executive told her to withhold information and documents from investigators in their probe of the former police commissioner.

Kerik, who was appointed to the post by then-New York City Mayor Giuliani, was indicted Nov. 9 by a federal grand jury on charges of tax evasion, conspiracy and lying to the White House. He pleaded guilty last year to state charges that he accepted thousands of dollars in gifts while in office.

Kerik turned down a 2004 offer by President George W. Bush to run the Homeland Security Department, a post Giuliani recommended him for, after it was disclosed that Kerik failed to pay taxes for a nanny that worked for him.

It will be up to the court to determine what the truth is and if there are some innocent victims here, but the phrase ‘nest of vipers’ keeps coming to mind. Quillblog does not envy the judge in this case.

Mulroney and O.J.: Bad company

Wondering just who is buying O.J. Simpson’s controversial book If I Did It, now being published by the Goldman family? There was a clue to be found on Amazon.ca today. The website noted that “Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought” Memoirs: 1939-1993 by Brian Mulroney and 21 Pounds in 21 Days: The Martha’s Vineyard Diet Detox by Roni Deluz.

Clearly, these book-buyers are not the sort to shy away from the controversial. Any other parallels drawn might lead straight to libel suits, so Quillblog will just leave it at that. Though, this might be one case in which the prime minister who championed free trade will object to the workings of the invisible hand of the market.

Bookmarks – O.J. gets arrested, prison libraries get purged, and more

Some book-related links:

• Noted memoirist O.J. Simpson arrested again (CBC.ca)
• Prison libraries get purged (The New York Times)
• Booker judge on who’s in, who’s out (Guardian Books)
• Alan Greenspan’s book blitz (Salon)
• Q&Q reviewer Zach Wells reads Betjeman’s “Slough,” with visual accompaniment (Career Limiting Moves)

Oprah talks about If I Did It

If you’re like us, you’re probably getting real sick of hearing about O.J. Simpson’s quasi-confessional If I Did It, but attention must be paid when the queen herself, Oprah, thrusts it back into the limelight. Yesterday, she invited the Goldman family onto her show to discuss the book and their decision to publish it, a choice for which they have been criticized. According to MSNBC, which has posted a good summation of the show’s highlights, Oprah said it was a “moral, ethical dilemma” for her to give more publicity to the book:

Winfrey acknowledged that her program often promotes books and authors, yet, she said, “I don’t want to be in the position to promote this book, because I, too, think it’s despicable.”

The MSNBC piece ends by stating that, as of yesterday, If I Did It was No. 8 in sales at Barnes and Noble and No. 52 on Amazon.com. According to a more recently updated piece on The Book Standard website, however, the book has subsequently shot up to No. 1 at Barnes and Noble and No. 2 on Amazon.com. Way to go Oprah…

Bookmarks – Poe mystery solved, and more

• You know that mysterious figure who visited Edgar Allan Poe’s grave every year? Nevermore. And it turns out it was all a publicity stunt cooked up by the guy “who led the fight to preserve the historic site.” Yup, we feel dirty too. (Associated Press via The Globe and Mail)
• ECW’s 800-page book about relatively obscure folk singer Steve Goodman is profiled. (The Seattle Times)
• Now that the O.J. Simpson book is going ahead, the victims’ families are fighting it out. (Forbes)
• Stephen King walks into an Australian bookstore …. (Yeah, it does sound like a joke. Punchline at the link.) (BBC News)