If the O.J. book were selling … what’s it worth?
If O.J. Simpson’s hypothetical tell-all book “If I Did It” had hit book stores as planned, it would have retailed for $24.95. But now that News Corp. has canceled plans to publish it and recalled distributed copies, a lively trade has developed on eBay and other Internet sites for what purport to be black market copies.
Bids were reaching thousands of dollars on some sites Thursday, though it’s unclear whether the bids or the books themselves were genuine. (“Don’t ask me where I got it … and save your nasty comments. You can’t offend me,” one seller’s listing noted.)
Some purported copies have actually changed hands online at a cost of $100. Rare book dealers speculate that confirmed copies of “If I Did It” could bring much more.
One dealer in 20th-century literature, Kevin Johnson, who owns Royal Books Inc. in Baltimore, said that if he owned a copy he would price it to sell quickly — and would ask $750. He notes that a specialist in more contemporary fiction might ask $2,000.
EBay Inc.’s Hani Durzy says the company has already removed a “handful” of listings for the Simpson book at HarperCollins’ request. “The books are considered property of HarperCollins,” says Erin Crum, a spokeswoman for the publishing house.
News Corp. is also taking steps to prevent any part of the planned two-hour TV interview with Simpson from surfacing. The company’s legal department has collected video and materials related to the specials — such as the interview footage and promotional spots — and placed them “in a secure, undisclosed location,” says one News Corp. executive.
It’s unclear how much control News Corp. has over the video, however. It’s possible that Judith Regan, whose Regan book imprint published the book and who interviewed Simpson, may own the rights through an independent production company. If so, she could distribute the footage online or elsewhere.
A spokeswoman for HarperCollins declined to comment. Calls to a spokeswoman for Regan weren’t returned.
HarperCollins declined to reveal how many copies of the book were printed and shipped to bookstores in advance of its scheduled publication date of Nov. 30. The publisher has said it has asked for all those it shipped to be returned and will destroy the entire press run.
But since the book is in the distribution pipeline, no one is surprised that copies have turned up for sale.
“Once the book is shipped to a retail chain by truck, it is outside of their control,” says David S. Korzenik, a publishing attorney with the firm Miller Korzenik Sommers LLP. He adds that HarperCollins probably wouldn’t have a case against someone trying to sell a copy. “It’s hard to do a title search,” he said. “It’s probably not worth policing for a single book.”
Certainly readers were already paying attention even before the book’s planned, and then canceled, release.
“The fact that this book was very high on the Amazon list indicated there is certainly an interest in it,” says Paul Secor, a buyer at the Strand, an independent New York bookstore whose stock includes rare books. “In some ways (the recall) has done nothing but spur interest.”
Earlier this week, three alleged copies of “If I Did It” were sold for $100 each on eBay’s auction site. The seller, based in Philadelphia, didn’t respond to a message asking about the origins of his copies. Meanwhile, a seller in the Los Angeles area advertised three copies of the book on that city’s Craigslist Web site for $100 each.