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Ex-Times editor Jill Abramson inks $1M book deal

Simon & Schuster has won the bidding for the first book by former New York Times Executive Editor Jill Abramson since she was booted from her job last May, The Post has learned.

The winning price was not disclosed but is believed to be around $1 million, industry sources said Wednesday night. It was above the range of expected bids, they said.

Abramson, 60, will write about the future of media in a rapidly changing world.

The rapid-fire auction started and ended Wednesday after Abramson and Suzanne Gluck, her agent from William Morris Endeavor, made the rounds to publishers last week.

“I’ve been a front-line combatant in the news media’s battles to remain the bedrock of an informed society,” Abramson said in a statement released to The Post. “Now, I’m going to wear my reporter’s hat again to tell the full drama of that story in a book, focusing on both traditional and new media players in the digital age.”

Abramson was unceremoniously fired as executive editor by New York Times Publisher Arthur “Pinch” Sulzberger, Jr., in May 2014 — four months shy of her third anniversary in the position.

Reuters

After she was fired, news reports said she had been paid less than her predecessor because she was a woman, triggering an endless round of controversy about the alleged glass ceiling at the newspaper.

Pinch released broadsides trying to squelch the controversy and insisted that the pay differential was closed in the latter part of her employment and said it was earlier ascribed to Abramson having fewer years in at the Gray Lady than her predecessor, Bill Keller.

There was no reaction from the Times to the news Wednesday that Abramson had landed a publisher at auction.

An S&S spokesman insisted, “It is not a score-settling book. We haven’t announced a publication date yet, but Jill is writing and reporting as we speak.”

Still, sources speculate this news will make a few nervous people inside the Times.

One reason cited for her dismissal was that she had an abrasive management style. Abramson, who worked at the Wall Street Journal prior to the Times, was known as an aggressive investigative reporter in her days at the Times Washington bureau.

Simon & Schuster President and Publisher Jonathan Karp told The Post, “The transformation of the news business is one of the most important cultural stories or our time. Jill Abramson has the talent, perspective and journalistic chops to write the defining book on this revolution.”