Bandalism goes to Harper Perennial at auction

My first post-Frankfurt sale goes to the entertaining how-to romp for aspiring musicians Bandalism by Julian Ridgway.

After an auction between four major US houses Calvert Morgan and Carrie Kania scooped the title with a perfect match for their list , a good advance, and proof-positive at their Myspace marketing panache.

The book was originally published in the UK by tiny indie house SAF Publishing who we work with regularly and who have a great knack for taking off-beat ideas and making them really work.

Post Frankfurt Buzz - and Rudi Dekkers' Tailspin

Still reeling after the week's meetings and valiantly trying to work through all my follow-up - apologies for anyone awaiting something that's not arrived: it WILL very shortly.

A fair buzz around several of my titles:

Helen FitzGerald continues to draw a huge amount of international interest
Clare Sudbery's debut Bent Spoons is also much desired!
Jon Fink is within days of submitting A Storm in the Blood which was my most requested book of the fair

and I'd better stop because it is unfair to single out anyone else as the interest across all titles and sectors was uniformly strong. I was particularly pleased by the level of attention I got for the fledgeling Youn Adult list.

One new and very HOT title has come in on the last day of the Fair:

Rudi Dekkers' Tailspin - Rudi Dekkers was the owner of the Florida flying school which taught the 9/11 suicide pilots to fly. It's a punchy story looking at what the men were like as they learned to fly, looking at how difficult it is to know/assess people, and also looking at the lasting and negative impact on Rudi's life as he is come to be seen as one of the key people who trained the terrorists. The book also looks back at terrorism's impact on Rudi's life as his own father was killed in a suspected ETA-motivated attack at the haulage firm he worked for in Spain.

The book also contains original documents which have not been previously released including the driving licenses, applications, visas of the men the rights for which Rudi has already been offered US$1 million by US newspapers - leading me to believe there is very significant serial rights potential in the UK as well. A graphologist has also been commissioned to analyse the men's writing from these documents, which will make an appendix to the main m/s.

Rudi is a Dutchman, but the book is written in English. The manuscript is complete - and I have a proposal including the documents, biog, contents outline and 5 key chapters, which I will be using for submission.

Anyone interested in seeing this for UK/Commonwealth rights please contact me immeidately at adrian@raftpr.com as I will be putting it out to submission on Friday (tomorrow)