Charles Frazier's lauded first novel, Cold Mountain, was the story of a long and tortuous walk undertaken by a troubled but deeply spiritual man. The selling of his second novel could be described in much the same terms.
After weeks of debate around the lunch tables of literary New York, Frazier finally put the US publishing world out of its misery last week when he announced he was to leave the independent company that turned his first book into an international best-seller and sign with one of the world's biggest conglomerates, Random House, for a reported $5 million.
Cold Mountain was published in 1998 by Grove Atlantic, a small but hugely respected firm based in New York. The book won glowing reviews, numerous literary prizes and sold 2.8 million copies in the US alone. Production on the film of the book is due to start later this year with, according to Hollywood Reporter magazine, Jude Law in the central character's role of Inman, the Confederate veteran who makes the long march home as the Civil War draws to an end, and Nicole Kidman as Ada, the woman he'd left behind in North Carolina.
Frazier's decision to leave the firm comes amid a fierce debate over the behaviour of so-called 'mercenary authors'. Some have accused him of disloyalty to the people who turned him into a literary superstar, while others have described his decision to go to Random House as understandable self-interest. Just about the only thing the two sides have been able to agree upon is that Frazier's second novel is that rarest of publishing rarities - a one-way bet in an uncertain world.
The iron rule of book-selling - that many of those 2.8 million readers will buy Frazier's second work, even if only for the chance to shake their head in disgust and mutter 'it's not as good as his first' - guarantees the second book an appearance at the top of the best-seller lists. It also explains why bidding for the novel, which is also set in the Civil War and tells the story of a white man who led a Confederate regiment of Cherokee Indians into battle, reached such stratospheric levels, despite the fact that the manuscript won't be ready until 2005.
Unlike the traditional publishing 'auction' that usually surrounds the sale of sought-after books, companies interested in buying Frazier's new novel were asked to submit a one-time-only 'best bid'. The author met with publishers and gave them a one-page outline of the book's plot.
'You're not risking the whole thing, because going into the bid you know there are at least 3 million people who read him and liked him the first time round,' one executive involved in the bidding told the New York Times last week.
None of the participants involved in the bidding was prepared to speak publicly for fear of driving Frazier away, but what was at stake was clear enough: should authors go for the money and sign with the publishing conglomerates, or should they take less and stick with the less powerful independent company that 'discovered' them? It was this dilemma that clearly caused Frazier untold angst, delaying his decision by several days.
The mere fact that his new agent, Amanda Urban, had asked other publishers to quantify their interest was seen as a blow to Grove Atlantic, which bought the manuscript of Cold Mountain in the mid-1990s for a mere $100,000.
It had been thought he might stick with his original publisher as long as it was able to come within a few hundred thousand dollars of the highest offer.
One New-York-based agent, unconnected with the bidding, said that Frazier's departure from Grove Atlantic was yet another devastating defeat for independent publishers in their one-sided battle against the global conglomerates.
Morgan Entrekin, who heads Grove Atlantic, last week described the success of Cold Mountain as the 'highlight of my career'. He had headed his company's effort to secure the rights to Frazier's second book.
'The success we enjoyed with the (first) book has made it possible for Grove Atlantic to thrive as an independent publisher over the last five years,' he said in a statement.
