Wylie Agency

Scott Moyers gave up his job as editor-in-chief of the Penguin Press just over a year ago to become the number two man at the Wylie Agency. It was a classic path, one that many editors before him had followed, but it nevertheless carried certain connotations—sort of like when a beloved professor gives up his or her work and takes a higher paying job as a university administrator, or worse, a researcher at a private think tank. Although Mr. Moyers at the time sounded excited about his new job and confident that the work would not be so different or less intellectually stimulating than what he was used to in editorial, there was still a bit of grieving among editors in this city when he announced his decision.  read more »

Less than a month after Dmitri Nabokov announced, following years of indecision, that he would publish his late father Vladimir’s unfinished final novel, The Original of Laura, he has hired a new literary agent to represent the Nabokov Estate.

That agent is Andrew Wylie, who is as famous for his expert handling of posthumous work by heavyweights like Saul Bellow, Lionel Trilling and Richard Yates as he is infamous for his tendency to lure high-profile clients away from less powerful agents.

It is unclear whether Nikki Smith of New Jersey-based agency Smith-Skolnik Literary Management, who has repped the Nabokov Estate since 1986, is still involved, or how far she got in the process of finding a publisher for Laura before Mr.  read more »

Jon-Jon Goulian, the bewildering intellectual androgyne who spent four years assisting Bob Silvers at the New York Review of Books, has sold a memoir to Random House for what a publishing source said was a sum in the high six figures.

Executive editor Kate Medina acquired the book in a preempt; literary agents Edward Orloff and Sarah Chalfant of The Wylie Agency, who submitted the proposal to several houses around town before receiving Ms. Medina's offer, brokered the deal.

Mr. Orloff said Mr. Goulian's book is tentatively titled The Man In the Gray Flannel Skirt: A Memoir Of Androgyny, presumably a reference to his days as a cross-dresser.

Though he hails from La Jolla and looks more like a street-tough surfer than a member of New York's delicate and droopy intelligentsia-in-training, Mr. Goulian's menacing tattoos, skin-tight tanktops, and frenetic manner have made him one of the most recognizable unknowns in New York letters. And although he has never published a book and has been more or less unemployed since he left the New York Review in 2005, he has achieved nothing short of iconic status in the publishing community here.  read more »

Bill Gates Sr., co-chair of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, is shopping a book about his life and the virtues of charity, publishing sources say. (Doubleday just issued a press release saying they bought the book; see update below)

The proposal for the book--titled Showing Up For Life--was sent out last Friday by Mr. Gates' agent, Scott Moyers of the Wylie Agency. According to one top editor who has seen it, the proposal describes the book as "a series of moving, exemplary stories about the virtues of caring, of giving back, of connection."

Several editors and executives who have seen the proposal said it sounded similar to Bill Clinton's most recent book Giving: How Each Of Us Can Change the World, which was published by Knopf earlier this fall and has generated disappointing sales.

UPDATE: Doubleday has bought the North American rights to the Gates book; the acquiring editor is Roger Scholl. According to the press release, the book will be out in 2009; some of the proceeds will be donated to various charities that Mr. Gates has supported throughout his life (United Way among them).

The press release also explains the book's title (Showing Up For Life): turns out is a reference to "Bill Gates Senior’s habit for 'showing up' wherever people are needed to move an important issue forward."

Scott Moyers’ sold four books in his first month as a literary agent—having worked as an editor at all four of those houses may have come in handy.  read more »