Business

FEY EYES BIG PAYDAY

PUBLISHERS have been chasing Tina Fey to write a book for years.

But now that the “30 Rock” and former “Saturday Night Live” star is the doppelganger to Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin, her celebrity status has turned white hot – and her book prospects are even hotter.

With very little prodding, Richard Abate, who left ICM to head up the East Coast operation at rival talent agency Endeavor, has begun sounding out publishers on their interest and – surprise, surprise – the lit set is panting for the chance to publish Fey.

One publisher out of the gate offered to pay a $5 million advance. Others jumped in, which, according to our sources, triggered a bidding war and sent the price tag to toward the $6 million range.

Abate declined to comment.

A source said that there is no proposal and that Fey, who has made two return appearances on SNL to satirize Palin, has been too busy to meet with publishers face to face.

One source familiar with the talks said that her book is not being pitched as a memoir, but instead as nonfiction humor, more in the style of author, screenwriter and film director Nora Ephron.

Paper talks

The Star-Ledger’s unionized truck drivers and the paper’s controlling Newhouse family are very close to a deal that could save the embattled Newark-based newspaper from extinction or a sale, according to top sources on both the labor and management side of the divide.

Talks are continuing even as the clock ticks toward a final deadline of Oct. 7.

“We are almost there,” said Doug Panattieri, head of the Newspaper and Mail Delivery Union, which represents the drivers.

Donald Newhouse, president of Advance Publications, which owns the Star-Ledger, said, “We have agreements on many of the points with the drivers. We are still hopeful we can reach an agreement.”

Neither side would go into specifics but it is believed that the drivers would model their agreement on accords that the pressmen and mailers, the other two unionized crafts, have already ratified.

In those deals, the unions agreed to set aside their collective- bargaining agreements, forego wage increases and accept a workforce reduction with buyout offers.

The 350,000-circulation daily is the largest paper in New Jersey but is said to be losing between $35 million and $40 million a year.

The Newhouse family had set a host of conditions that must be met, including 200 voluntary buyouts from non-unionized journalists and editors and major concessions from the three major trade unions that represent pressmen, mailers and drivers.

Newhouse said the number of journalists and editors who have accepted the buyout has not quite reached 200, but “it’s very close.”

The newsroom had been given a pledge years ago that if it never unionized, it would be exempt from any firings. However, a sale or complete shutdown of the paper would obviously supersede that pact.

If all the conditions are not met by the Oct. 7 deadline, the Newhouse family said it would begin soliciting bids to sell the paper. If no buyer came forward, the paper would be closed for good on Jan. 5.

Newhouse said that even with the conditions met, the paper would still have to institute other cost-cutting moves in order to return the paper to profitability.

Book pick

A new Random House book, “Thank You for All Things” by Sandra King, has been selected as the first book in the All You Book Club, which debuts this month.

All You is the Wal-Mart special magazine cooked up by Time Inc. four years ago to serve as a low-price offering for customers of the retail giant. It is big on coupons and tips on how to save money and is targeted at value-conscious consumers.

It was widely lampooned by Time Inc. staffers, who called it “Y’all” magazine and thought that it was fairly lowbrow fare aimed at the largely rural and minivan-driving crowd that patronizes the nation’s largest retailer.

But the magazine has been a success on the circulation front with a rate base that now stands at 900,000 and is destined to rise to 925,000 in January. It accepts subscribers but is only sold on newsstands inside Wal-Mart stores, so it is always a challenge how to increase newsstand sales.

With the economy taking a tumble, Publisher Diane Oshin thinks the magazine’s value- added offerings put it in a good position for next year.

“We’re in the sweet spot,” she said.

The All You Book Club will join the existing Wal-Mart Reader’s Choice Club, which puts a new book before customers every month.

All You only gets a chance to jump on the display once a quarter, when an extra 25,000 copies of the magazine will be pumped into about 1,200 Wal-Mart stores.

“We fully expect to have a sell-through rate of 50 percent,” said Oshin of the magazine, which will be displayed on the same shelves as the Book Club offer ings.

The October edition of the magazine will contain a two- page ad from Random House plus an editorial instructing consumers on how to form a neighborhood book club.

keith.kelly@nypost.com