One of the most powerful agents in the literary world, Esther Newberg, blasted rival super agent Andrew “The Jackal” Wylie for what she claims is his long-running practice of poaching writers from other agents.
Newberg claimed Wylie recently tried to poach an unnamed writer from one of her younger associates at International Creative Management — and she is out for revenge.
“I am just lying in wait for the moment when I can get back at him,” Newberg vowed.
She made her comments at Book Expo America, staged at the Javits Center last week, in an interview that is set to air on “Pia Lindstrom Presents” on Sirius XM’s Book Radio channel tomorrow.
Wylie has a reputation as a hard-nosed negotiator, with clients including Philip Roth, Salman Rushdie and Martin Amis among a long and distinguished list that shuns some of the more popular best-selling authors for writers he deems to be more literary.
In the same interview, Newberg claimed that Wylie had tried unsuccessfully to poach author and New Yorker contributor Seymour Hersh from her several years ago.
“Sy let him talk and then he said, ‘You think I don’t have an agent? I’m 68 years old. I have a very tough agent, and when I tell her that you called me she is not going to be happy.’ ”
The British press is usually credited with tagging Wylie with the Jackal nickname back in 1995, when he obtained a $750,000 advance for Amis after persuading the British writer to dump his longtime agent, Pat Kavanagh, even though she was the wife of Julian Barnes, a best friend of Amis’ at the time.
Newberg, who got her start as a jun ior staffer to Senator Robert F. Kennedy, is famous for keeping her counsel and keeping writ ers, including Carl Hiaa sen, Pete Hamill, Caroline Kennedy and Patricia Cornwell for life. “I don’t know of a single colleague of mine who has ever picked up the phone in the hopes of stealing someone else’s client,” she said.
She even claims she was the one who originally came up with the nickname for Wylie that has long since gone international.
“I think I gave him that nickname.” Newberg tells Lindstrom. “I think so, I did.”
Wylie did not return a call or e-mail seeking comment.
Beach bargain
Even the rich love a good deal.
A new Web site is launching an East End discount card, Hamptons Pass, which will give shoppers access to deals like free drinks with dinner at celebrity-favorite restaurant Nick & Toni’s and a free pet check-up with Billy Joel‘s veterinarian.
“We bundle together different merchants to give buyers exclusive values. It’s about community sharing and community purchasing. People get better deals as a community than as an individual,” said BuyWithMe CEO Cheryl Rosner, whose past experience includes launching Hotels.com.
“It’s a beautiful, virtuous business model because it also helps the merchant get new consumers while helping our community — typically urban females who like to experience new things and share with their friends,” Rosner added.
The year-old company received $5.5 million in start-up funds from Matrix Partners, the venture-capital group that invested in Gilt Groupe, a successful high-end discount e-commerce site for designer fashion that has ignited obsessive loyalty among its fans.
The card, launching June 15, is priced at $150 per person or $200 for two people.
It provides exclusive access and more than $1,000 worth of discounts from July 1 to Sept. 30 in the Hamptons — and they are still bringing more vendors into the fold.
Rosner said the New York-based company will roll out City Passes in 20 urban centers across the country by the end of the year. The Philadelphia City Pass launches next week and the New York City one begins in September.
Heated rivalry
How deep does the animosity run between Apple and Google?
Internet blogs are all abuzz this holiday weekend with speculation that the new iPhone model due out in a couple of weeks will use Microsoft’s Bing as its default search engine instead of Google.
Since Steve Jobs returned from his bout with pancreatic cancer, his take-no-prisoners approach to Google and Adobe has become gossip grist for Silicon Valley happy hours.
In January, Jobs told The Apple corps that Google’s mantra of “do no evil” is “bull****,” and he has only ratcheted up his rhetoric from there.
In February, the Apple chief called Adobe “lazy” for not creating a version of Flash for Apple. He later wrote on Apple’s Web site that the company would not support Flash on its mobile devices such as the iPad, or iTouch, because it was slow and used too much battery life.
Apple insiders say Jobs’ animosity for the Web search giant comes from Google’s entry into the smart-phone market with its Nexus One cellphone to compete against the iPhone.