Iowa Library's Cat Has a  Rich Second Life as a Biography

Dewey the long-lived library cat with one of his  future biographers,
Vicki Myron, a librarian in the small town of Spencer,  Iowa.

By MOTOKO  RICH
(http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/r/motoko_rich/in
dex.html?inline=nyt-per)

Watch out, Marley.
In a hotly contested deal, the life story of Dewey, a rescued cat who lived
for 19 years in a library in a small town in Iowa, has sold for about $1.25
million to Grand Central Publishing.

With an eye toward creating the feline answer to the best-selling "Marley  &
Me," John Grogan's memoir of his misbehaving yellow Labrador retriever,
Grand Central bought the book, currently titled "Dewey, a Small Town, a
Library and the World's Most Beloved Cat," on Monday by making an offer high
enough to pre-emptively shut down an auction.

"You can't underestimate the market out there for people who love animals,"
said Karen Kosztolnyik, the senior editor at Grand Central who will edit the
book; co-authors will be Vicki Myron, the head librarian in Spencer, Iowa;
and  Bret Witter, a former editorial director at Health Communications, the
publisher  of the "Chicken Soup for the Soul" books.

"You look at 'Marley & Me,' and that book has been a publishing
 phenomenon," Ms. Kosztolnyik said. "I think there are equally as many cat
lovers out there. We see this as having that kind of potential."

The authors' advance raised some eyebrows in the publishing industry, given
that "Marley & Me" reportedly sold to William Morrow less than three years
ago for an advance of about $200,000. To date it has sold 1.85 million
copies
in hardcover, according to Nielsen Bookscan, which tracks book sales in most
bookstores and online retailers, although not mass-market outlets like
Wal-Mart.

"It's stunning, the advances being paid," said Robert S. Miller, president
of  Hyperion, a publisher that looked at the "Dewey" proposal but declined
to
bid.  "If it might be the next 'Da Vinci Code' or the next 'Marley & Me,'
the ante just increases," Mr. Miller said. "The problem is that even as the
biggest best sellers sell more copies, there are fewer of them, so the
publishers paying  these advances do so at increasing risk."

According to publishing executives, "Dewey" will need to sell at least
250,000 copies in hardcover to cover the cost of the advance. Sales to
foreign
publishers or paperback sales could offset some of that cost.

"Dewey," which was sold on the basis of a 45-page proposal with about 10
photos of the fluffy orange cat, will tell the story of how the kitten was
found
in the late-night book drop of the public library in Spencer, a town in the
northwest part of the state, and adopted by Ms. Myron and the other
librarians.  Slowly, over the course of his 19-year life, Dewey became a
town mascot who  lifted the spirits of residents hit hard by the 1980s
farming crisis. In the process he attracted the attention of tourists,
cat-calendar makers and
filmmakers. He appeared in "Puss in Books: Adventures of the Library Cat," a
1997 documentary, and another film made by Japanese documentarians. When he
died  last November, his obituary ran in more than 250 publications,
including USA Today and The Washington Post.

Jamie Raab, publisher of Grand Central (formerly called Warner Books), said
she was hooked on "Dewey" just two pages into the proposal, which she read
last  Thursday. Ms. Raab said she was so excited by the proposal that she
got
out of  bed at midnight to send e-mail to Ms. Kosztolnyik, saying, "Let's
buy
this  book."

"To me it was just about how animals can bring out the humanity in us, and I
loved that," she said, comparing "Dewey" to books like "The Bridges of
Madison County" and titles by the novelist Nicholas Sparks, all best sellers
for
the  publisher. "It was one of those books where I thought, 'We know how to
sell  this.' "

Peter McGuigan, Ms. Myron's and Mr. Witter's agent at Sanford J. Greenburger
Associates, said that the pitch was "one of the best proposals I'd ever read
on any subject at a commercial level." He sent it out last week and
expected to run  an auction this week, but found himself juggling dueling,
escalating offers on  Friday while he was on a bike trip from Los Angeles to
Santa Barbara. He  concluded the deal with Grand Central, he said, while
waiting in the airport for  his flight back to New York on Monday.

Ms. Raab said she wasn't nervous about the risk she was taking. "It's a gut
thing," she said. "When you talk yourself into something it's often
problematic, but when you feel something so strongly and instinctually, my
experience has been that those are the books that work."

Jill