Publishing insiders are scratching their heads over the size of the $2.5 million advance that CIA analyst Valerie Plame-Wilson will be collecting for penning her story about being "outed" by the Bush administration.
"Can a book by an untested writer earn back such a substantial advance?" asks the New York Sun. "And will Mrs. Wilson run into any of the problems that other former CIA employees have experienced in getting their books cleared by the agency's Publications Review Board?"
To cover Mrs. Wilson's whopping payday, publisher Crown will have to sell 500,000 copies, the Sun said, noting that's "half again as many as Jon Stewart's 'America,' a big best seller last year."
However, one publishing insider who wished to remain anonymous said Plame's advance wasn't all that outlandish, explaining: "On the scale of ridiculous advances, it's not the craziest I've ever heard."
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"A lot of it has to do with what she's actually going to say," he insisted. "She's a person who's received a lot of attention and has remained quiet until now. That's a good recipe."
Then again, it's still not clear how much of Plame's story the CIA will let her tell.
According to attorney Mark Zaid, who has represented other agency veterans who wrote books, the agency is now "far stricter in how they're interpreting things. They've made it very clear that they don't want former employees writing books about their experiences."
Still, if Plame's book turns out to be a cover-to-cover Bush bash, her old bosses are more likely to give her the green light.
"If you're an opponent of this president, you're likely to have a pretty free ride at the CIA," Frank Gaffney, president of the Center for Security Policy, told the Sun.