EXCLUSIVE: Nikki Finke let us know that no sooner had her book deal with Twelve evaporated than the mauscript for the Mike Ovitz bio The Man Who Wanted Everything was on its way to a new agent, Alice Martell, who read the pages Monday night and immediately agreed to represent the book, which had originally been sold to Twelve by Andrew Blauner. “I’m thrilled that a powerhouse like her loves the manuscript and wants to represent it,” Finke emails. She’s in good company: Martell’s clients include celebrity caterer Serena Bass, journalists Gail Collins and Thomas E. Ricks, and Girlbomb memoirist Janice Erlbaum.
“It’s fascinating material,” Martell said of Finke’s book during a phone interview. “It’s an incredibly insightful account of life in Hollywood, and I think Nikki’s one of the few people who could write it. A book like this takes both tremendous experience and great sources.” When the subject of shopping the manuscript around came up, Martell said she thought “a number of houses” could be suitable homes for the project, but wasn’t taking anything for granted: “Nothing is easy in publishing, even when you think it is.”