NEW York Giants coach Tom Coughlin has begun holding talks about a memoir based on the team’s spectacular Super Bowl season.
“He’s had discussions with some publishers and in the next week we expect to have more discussions,” said Coughlin’s agent, Sandy Montag.
So far, there is no proposal and Coughlin hasn’t even had time to make the rounds to personally visit publishers. The contact so far has been via phone.
Publishers so far are showing some early caution and not banging down the door with any seven-figure offers, said several publishing sources.
It remains to be seen if that will change once Coughlin visits various publishing houses over the next week or so.
“There’s a lot of interest,” insisted Montag. “It’s a great turnaround story.”
But Coughlin has already signaled that he doesn’t plan to do any kind of negative tell-all, even though he had some spirited clashes with stars such as retired running back Tiki Barber and Michael Strahan, the defensive lineman who nearly retired but came back for the 2007 season.
His book, at least in the early going, is being pitched more as a memoir than a business or management guide.
“I think I’d look on the book to be a kind of victory lap,” said another publishing source, who predicted only a mid six-figure advance for Coughlin.
Coughlin’s decision not to go negative made at least one publisher think that the project might be little more than a book for fans.
“It will probably get $750,000,” predicted one publisher, “although it may be worth only half that amount.”
Coach books can be very lucrative – but they also can bomb.
Last year, in the wake of his decision to reject the Yankees’ lowball offer and instead bolt to the Los Angeles Dodgers, Joe Torre snagged a whopping $1.8 million advance from Doubleday to do his memoir, which is not due out until spring 2009.
Torre’s earlier management tome, “Ground Rules for Winners: 12 Keys to Managing Team Players, Tough Bosses, Setbacks, and Success” from Hyperion, snagged him only a mid six-figure advance, but didn’t sell particularly well for the publisher.
Basketball coaches have had a mixed bag, as well.
Phil Jackson scored big with “Sacred Hoops: Spiritual Lessons of a Hardwood Warrior,” and Rick Pitino’s book, “Success Is a Choice: Ten Steps to Overachieving in Business and Life,” was a monster hit when he was coaching at the University of Kentucky.
But a second book by Pitino, while he was coaching the Boston Celtics, tanked.
Score
Plaxico Burress, the Giants wide receiver who caught the winning touchdown in the Super Bowl, has settled on William Morrow as his publisher.
Sources said they believed the deal fetched an advance of about $200,000.
Morrow is a part of Harper Collins, which, like The Post, is owned by News Corp. Sources there would not comment for the record.
Ian Kleinert, an agent at Objective Entertainment who’s representing Burress, said the book was going to be a memoir on Burress’ whole life.
The ghostwriter/collaborator was switched at the last minute due to a scheduling conflict.
Mike Garafolo, a sports writer with the Star-Ledger in Newark, is off the deal, and Jason Cole of Yahoo! Sports, is the replacement.
Garafolo couldn’t be reached for comment.
Mannings
Requests are pouring in to all members of the Manning family for book deals, but so far none has committed to any of the ideas, let alone tested the waters with publishers.
The proposals being floated include everything from a book that would pair up the 2008 Super Bowl MVP Eli Manning with older brother and 2007 Super Bowl MVP Peyton along with their dad, former Ole Miss and New Orleans Saints QB Archie.
There is even said to be interest by some publishers in having Eli and Peyton’s mom, Olivia pen a story.
“They are looking at options, but they have not decided what they want to do, or if they want to do books or not,” said Montag, who represents the Mannings. “They are more private.”
Lucy’s rooms
Self magazine Editor-in-Chief Lucy Danziger, who has turned Self-branded books into big sellers, is no longer content to split the income with Condé Nast boss S.I. Newhouse Jr.
She’s now striking out on her own with an independent book deal to write “The Nine Rooms of Happiness.”
Danziger will be splitting the advance with co-author Catherine Birndorf, a Self columnist and psychiatrist at the Payne Whitney women’s program at the Weill-Cornell Medical Center.
“We’ve talked about women and happiness for years and we decided to write a book about it,” said Danziger.
The book, due out in 2010 from the Voice imprint of Disney’s Hyperion book publishing arm, snagged an estimated $750,000 advance in a spirited three-day auction brokered by agent Mark Reiter.
“The idea is be happier – and to not let the few things that are not going right to bring you down, when most things are going right.”
The book divides a women’s emotional well-being into separate parts, as if they were rooms in a house.
For example, the living room is the social part, while the bedroom the sensual, or sexual, part.
Earlier, Danziger oversaw “Fifteeen Minutes to Your Best Self” a compilation book written with other Self editors and published by the Gotham imprint of Penguin.keith.kelly@nypost.com