Karl Rove Chooses Threshold Over Free Press

By Neal 

This is probably old news to most readers by now, seeing as it happened Friday afternoon, but Leon Neyfakh of the Observer followed through on his earlier reporting on Karl Rove‘s book deal negotiations by posting an item about their resolution: Rove’s memoirs are going to Threshold, the conservative Simon & Schuster imprint overseen by Republican strategist Mary Matalin. For most of last week, the former adviser to George W. Bush was trying to decide between Threshold and Free Press, another division of S&S with a reputation for publishing strong narrative nonfiction.

There are two ways to hindcast the deal: You could say that the Rove-Matalin reunion is a perfect storm of conserative synergy aimed squarely at Bush’s loyal fan base, or you could counter that Rove has cut himself off from more mainstream marketing opportunities that would have come from aligning with the non-partisan Free Press. Either way, as previously noted, 60 Minutes is in the bag.