Jose Canseco Finds a New Writer, Publisher
Posted on January 23, 2008
The saga of the Jose Canseco book deal continues. Canseco lost his co-author Don Yaeger, the former Sports Illustrated associate editor, and also lost his publisher. But he's now signed a new deal with Simon Spotlight, an imprint of Simon & Schuster.
Jennifer Bergstrom, publisher of Simon Spotlight, said Bret Saxon, Canseco's book agent, called her last Tuesday after Berkley decided not to go forward. Bergstrom asked to see the manuscript exclusively, and within 48 hours of reading it, Bergstrom had signed a deal. Asked whether the book would be controversial, she said, "Absolutely." She added that the problems with the earlier deal that fell through "surprised me a little bit, but it didn't scare us."Canseco promises lots more juicy revelations. Canseco has essentially blown the lid off the whole "steroids in baseball" story and has made a lot of enemies in the process. His last book was a bestseller.*****
The new collaborator is Pablo F. Fenjves, a screenwriter and the ghostwriter of If I Did It, O. J. Simpson's hypothesized confession to the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman, and Witness: For the Prosecution of Scott Peterson, by Amber Frey, who was having an affair with Peterson, who was convicted of murdering his wife, Laci Peterson. Fenjves wrote Canseco's book in less than three weeks.
Fenjves said he met with Canseco several times and that it was not that difficult cranking out the book. "I was surprised by the level of detail in his head," Fenjves said. "He knew what he wanted to say."