On the Right - Wrong-Way Corrigan Rides Again.(book contract for Bill Clinton's memoirs)(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)

NEW YORK, AUGUST 7

The teeth-gnashing when the news was out about Clinton's advance was mostly by people who a) didn't think Clinton should monetize the kind of thing that made him infamous, and b) felt it was yet one more affront on the public that the price was probably right. That last isn't a learned exploration of the economics of publishing, it's just a hunch. Publishing economics-unlike what it is that brings the public to buy a book-is not inscrutable. The author's royalty is 15 percent. If Clinton's book sells for $30, he makes $4.50 from every sale. Times a thousand, that's $4,500. Times 100,000, that's $450,000. So he'd have to sell 24 x 100,000 to earn the estimated $10 million advance. Well, that's not going to happen, but great chunks can be got from foreign sales, magazines, book clubs, paperback editions. Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., is stretching it, but they're rich, rich Germans own them, and a sister publisher already paid $8 million for Hillary-why not a little competition at the bookstore?

The extra-economic resentment has to do with a wobbly extension of the federal rule that you are not allowed to profit from a crime. The Army doctor who killed his pregnant wife and two children wrote a commercial book, the proceeds from which were sequestered. But Bill didn't commit a crime, of the kind the good guys string you up for. What happened was that the good guys tried just that, and he got away with it, and for a couple of years continued popping about the world visiting kings and queens and prime ministers-but let the incomparable Margaret Carlson tell it, as she does in Time magazine this week: "How many times can the comeback kid come back? As many times as he needs to. Last week Bill Clinton emerged from his self-imposed post-pardon-scandal exile. . . . It was full-frontal Clinton-winking, mugging at the most mundane remarks, pointing excitedly into the crowd as if he had just spotted a long-lost friend or a donor. It was picture perfect, a routine ribbon cutting turned into exuberant street carnival. Cable dropped its split- screen coverage of Clinton alongside the current President giving a speech, and went with full-screen coverage of an ex-President opening an office. The New York Times's headline the next day: A HERO'S WELCOME."

That's what makes Clinton's book worth ...