Michael Hastings Lands Book Deal Following Rolling Stone McChrystal Bombshell
That was fast, though not unsurprising. Michael Hastings, whose bombshell Rolling Stone profile on General McChrystal made international headlines and resulted in the General’s firing has signed a book deal based on his article. From Little Brown’s announcement:
A forthcoming UNTITLED book by renowned journalist Michael Hastings, author of the Rolling Stone article “The Runaway General” which revealed shocking truths about General McChrystal and the war in Afghanistan, that promises an unprecedented behind-the-scenes account of America’s longest war, to Geoff Shandler, Editor in Chief, Little, Brown and Company, by Scott Moyers at the Wylie Agency.
The book will offer an unfiltered look at the war, and the soldiers, diplomats and politicians who are waging it. Based on exclusive reporting in Afghanistan, Europe, the Middle East and Washington, D.C., this landmark work of journalism will elucidate as never before our deeply troubling war in vivid, unforgettable detail.
Little, Brown Publisher Michael Pietsch says, “In his brilliant article Michael Hastings has already given us the clearest of insights into the disaster of America’s war in Afghanistan. He is a writer of extraordinary talent and his book will take us deeper and further into the war and its major architects, at a time when we need that clarity desperately.”
No word yet on how much the book sold for. UPDATE: Rumor has it the book went for seven figures, which is a rather serious chunk of change in this publishing environment. See below re name recognition. UPDATE #2: Did a million dollars sound too good to be true? Apparently it is. An executive familiar with the deal tells us Little Brown paid significantly less than 7 figures.
Regardless it’s a smart buy for Little Brown: name recognition is more than half the battle when it comes to selling books these days and between McChrystal, Rolling Stone, and Michael Hastings let’s just say this is not a subject or an author that will be unfamiliar to the public.
The McChrystal book is Hastings second about Iraq. In 2007 he authored a memoir about his time in Baghdad as a Newsweek correspondent and the death of his fiance in a car bombing there. At the time, the proposal for the memoir made some inner circle media waves after it was leaked to the Observer (who eventually took it down). No such surprises this time around…to put it mildly.
