Now former Vice President Al Gore is dumping his publishers, Rodale and Penguin, and jumping to Random House for his next book, a yet to be titled tome due sometime next year.
Andrew Wylie at the Wylie Agency served as the agent for Gore. He will be the first author to work with Jon Meacham, the former Newsweek editor-in-chief who landed as an executive editor at the publishing house after leaving the magazine prior to its sale by the Washington Post Co. to electronics mogul Sidney Harman.
Gore, who won the Nobel Prize for his work on climate change, published his first book, “An Inconvenient Truth,” to accompany his documentary of the same title.
At the time, having a companion book to a heavy, thought-provoking movie was considered something of a gamble. But it ended up as a best-seller, as did his follow-up for Penguin, “The Assault on Reason,” which sold about 350,000 copies.
Gore also did a smaller book for Rodale, “Our Choice,” which landed on bestseller lists.
Meacham believes Gore’s next book has the potential to be an even bigger blockbuster.
“This will have a wider reach. He’s already a writer with a big following and this will give him a bigger canvas,” Meacham said.
Kushner’s beat
Observer Media Group owner Jared Kushner has just launched Betabeat.com, covering what he sees as a booming New York City tech scene.
The tech addition is seen as the first of several new vertical sites to be launched by the owner of the salmon-colored weekly, The New York Observer.
It’s also the first significant Web rollout since Kushner bounced Kyle Pope as the editor-in-chief of the newspaper and replaced him with the founding editor of Gawker, Elizabeth Spiers.
At the time, sources said that one source of tension between Pope and Kushner was the owner’s desire to push more Web-based products into the market and downplay the print version and long-form journalistic pieces that had helped put the Observer on the map.
Kushner insisted that line of reasoning is off base. “We’re not downplaying the print edition,” he insisted. “We’re trying to give a much better mix of shorter stories up front and longer features in the middle [of the Observer].
And while turnover and ousters were fairly routine in Pope’s tenure of less than a year, Kushner insisted that he will be adding staffers in the weeks ahead, saying, “We have offers out to several people.”
Kushner said next up is a redesign of the Observer’s Web site. After that, he said he is studying three or four possible new vertical sites to round out the Observer Media portfolio.
It’s not the first time Kushner has outlined an ambitious Web strategy. He originally envisioned using politicker.com as the footprint for a national rollout of political Web sites tied to the 2008 presidential election.
But that plan was largely scrapped in the ensuing recession of 2008, and 17 sites shut down suddenly in late 2008. Now, only Politickernj.com lives on as a high-priced subscription-supported Web site. And he also predicted yet again that the 50,000-circulation Observer — which was losing about $2 million a year when he took it over from founder Arthur Carter four years ago — is on the brink of turning an annual profit.
Nest designs
Jimmy Finkelstein, owner of The Hill and an investor, along with Guggenheim Partners, in the $70 million purchase of Adweek, Billboard and The Hollywood Reporter in 2009, seems to be quietly expanding his media holdings.
He recently has acquired Web site “I Want Media” from founder Patrick Phillips.
The deal is being made by Finkelstein as an individual and is separate from his ownership of The Hill or his investment in Prometheus, the holding company for Ad week and sister mags, according to Phillips, who is an adjunct professor at New York Uni versity.
“Jimmy Finkelstein and I have talked about a busi ness relationship on and off for a few years. He has even sat in on my under graduate digital journalism course at NYU,” said Phillips.
“It’s not the first overture over the years,” he added. “I have participated in many talks of acquisitions and partnerships for I Want Media over the years.”
None of them came to fruition until now. “I think this deal makes good sense for both of us,” said Phillips, who started I Want Media as a one-man Web site in 2000.
Phillips said he will continue to run the site for Finkelstein, who seems to be expanding his Web holdings. He earlier backed former Fairchild CEO Michael Coady in the launch of the fashionetc.com Web site that hired Charla Lawhon, the former group editor of In Style, to be its editor. kkelly@nypost.com