Victor Cruz, the salsa-dancing standout wide receiver for the New York Giants — who was a celebrity presenter at the recent Grammy Awards — will soon be able to add author to his list of accomplishments.
The Penguin USA imprint Celebra Books is said to have won a spirited auction for the post-Super Bowl memoir of Cruz, with an advance estimated to be in the mid-six-figure range.
“Yes, we’ve reached an agreement in principle and are going to contract,” said Sandy Montag, a senior vice president at talent agency IMG, which reps Cruz.
The deal was brokered in partnership with Scott Waxman at the Waxman Literary Agency.
Raymond Garcia, the publisher of Celebra, did not return a call seeking comment by presstime.
The obstacle for any publisher is that sports books generally have a tough time busting out beyond the city or region where a team is based.
A seasonal memoir, even one detailing the Giants’ second upset of the New England Patriots in a four-year span, faces the hurdle that it must add something that the avid fan doesn’t already know from blanket coverage in newspapers, Web sites and magazines.
Giants coach Tom Coughlin penned a memoir on the 2008 season, which featured the team’s improbable first upset victory over the previously undefeated Patriots. That book, entitled “A Team to Believe In,” sold just 10,000 copies, according to Bookscan, which tracks about 70 percent of the retail market nationally.
Cruz’s people are hoping to get the manuscript completed and off to a printer by May so it will be ready to hit shelves in July — in advance of the opening of NFL training camps in August.
That would allow Cruz time to make the all-important personal appearances on behalf of the book.
Sources are betting that the Cruz advance money fell a little short of the estimated $400,000 advance snagged by Coughlin four years earlier.
Celebra, however, is an imprint that caters to the Latino market in the US and can publish both English-language and Spanish-language versions.
Glammed up
Condé Nast has put a lot of promotional muscle behind the redesigned Glamour that hit with the March issue. And so far, it seems to be paying off.
After racking up fairly worrisome newsstand sales figures in 2011, the second-most profitable title in the Newhouse empire is now up a healthy 8 percent on newsstands with its new issue, according to early company sales estimates.
In the first half of 2011, single-copy sales tumbled 17 percent. In the second half, sales were down 10 percent, to 469,544. Although the bulk of Glamour’s 2,353,863 total circulation comes from subscriptions, newsstand sales are big enough that the declines are worrisome.
Hearst’s Cosmopolitan, Glamour’s biggest rival, also saw newsstand erosion in 2011, but it was down only 7 percent in the second half of the year, and its single-copy base is larger — 1,460,982 out of total circ of 3,040,013 in the six-month period.
The new Glamour cover features Amanda Seyfried in a flowered halter top holding a blow dryer sitting on what appears to be a fancy bathtub.
Seyfried, who made her film debut in “Mean Girls,” is seen in the current film “Gone” and is preparing to play Linda Lovelace, who became famous after starring in the X-rated film “Deep Throat” in the 1970s.
The redesign is attempting to make the magazine “more conversational,” said Editor-In-Chief Cindi Leive.
Leive said it is the first time in 14 years that the magazine has depicted some of the scenery where a fashion shoot took place, not simply the neutral white background favored by most women’s magazines. She promises more “new look” covers in the months ahead.
Leive said she’s unlikely to return to the no-name models that once graced the cover and will stick with celebrities. “But I define celebrities very broadly,” she said.
Philly fever
More than 300 present and former journalists of the Philadelphia Inquirer and the Philadelphia Daily News have signed an online petition decrying what they feel is the business side’s decision to kill stories related to the paper’s pending sale.
The problem has apparently become a serious enough obstacle that a potential buyout group that is being headed by former Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell has agreed that it would insert a non-interference clause if it is successful in its acquisition.
Rendell has been tagged the front-runner, in part because he was approached by Greg Osberg, the embattled publisher and CEO of the Philadephia Media Network, which owns the papers, back in October to see about putting together a buyout group.