The three Cleveland women who were kidnapped and held captive for years by Ariel Castro are now at odds with competing tell-all books.
Michelle Knight is working on a memoir about their ordeal, to be published next spring by Weinstein Books, Harvey Weinstein’s imprint.
Amanda Berry and Gina DeJesus are doing a joint book with Viking, coming out in 2015.
“There’s major tension between the two camps,” one New York publishing exec told The Post’s Tara Palmeri. “It started over their years inside the house. The girls didn’t get along. If there wasn’t tension, all three would be doing the book together.”
Network bookers are already fighting to land the three women for interviews. Earlier this year, Knight went on “Dr. Phil” and talked about her years in captivity.
“She lowered the value of the book by going on Dr. Phil,” said my source. “The question is, did people get enough?”
The fact that Castro was able to hang himself five months after his arrest has also diminished public interest. “Are people going to care, since Ariel Castro committed suicide in prison?”
The publishers are hoping for the kind of success Simon & Schuster had last year with “A Stolen Life,” Jaycee Dugard’s tale of being held for 18 years by a sex offender and his wife. Over 1.6 million copies of the book were sold, and it stayed on the best-seller list for 33 weeks.