My aborted book collaboration with a notorious New York Mafia figure
A tentative agreement followed by a shakedown demand
In June 2009, a friend in Los Angeles approached me and asked if I was interested in a collaboration for the memoir of one of the toughest and most notorious Mafia figures in American history, John “Sonny” Franzese, the long-time underboss of New York’s Colombo crime family.
Hearing the offer, I nearly jumped out of the chair at my desk, exclaiming, “Absolutely!”
He laughed and said that he would get back to me the following day. Meantime, I did some research and learned that Franzese—then 100 years old but reportedly still on top of things—had recently been released from prison.
The next day, my friend instructed me to put together a proposal for Franzese, providing an overview of the publishing process. Here is a portion of what I wrote to Franzese:
Introduction
Thank you for considering this project with me. I believe that you are an important person in American history with unique experiences, observations, and perspectives. I sincerely hope that we can work together.
[Our mutual friend] asked me to provide the following proposal for you. Once again, I would prefer to keep this entire project under wraps. I don’t want this matter to spark the interest of the law-enforcement community, journalists, or anyone else. I want us to complete this manuscript as quietly as possible without any outside pressure or harassment. After our work is completed, I fully support a full-scale public promotion by both of us.
Of course, our deal is not formalized until we sign a collaboration agreement. I suggest that we have an initial meeting to discuss the project, making sure that we are in agreement as to how to approach it.
The proposed deal
If acceptable to you, the byline for the book will read, “By John “Sonny” Franzese, as told to Dan E. Moldea.”
You and I—as co-authors—will share the copyright.
You will receive 50 (fifty) percent and I will receive 34 (thirty-four) percent of any and all net revenues generated by the book after the literary agent’s commission. In addition, [our mutual friend] will receive 16 (sixteen) percent of the net revenues after the literary agent’s commission.
You and I will not accept personal money from each other. You and I will each cover our own expenses—unless both of us agree in writing to share expenses to be recouped from the book’s revenues on a case-by-case basis.
As the writer, I will have editorial control over the final draft manuscript which will be submitted to the publisher.
I would like our book completed within a year of the signing of a contract with a publishing house.
The proposal
After we sign the collaboration agreement, we will get together at agreed upon times for the interviewing process. I would like to tape record—and even videotape, if possible—this series of interviews about your life and times. To all intents and purposes, I will consider these tapes completely confidential and will only share them with those people authorized by you, such as the vetting attorneys for the publishing house or a movie/documentary maker.
Along with these interviews, you will provide me with any relevant personal documents, government or court records, published articles, or photographs in your possession.
After collecting all of this material, I will write a proposal, which will be anywhere from twenty to sixty pages.
The agent and the pitch
After you approve the proposal, we will retain a literary agent, who usually works on a standard 15 (fifteen) percent commission of all gross revenues generated by the book.
Generally speaking, the agent has two routes by which he or she will sell the book. The first is to offer it to a single publisher with the hope of receiving a “buy-out” in which the offered advance is high enough to preclude further shopping.
The second route is to send the proposal to many publishers simultaneously, setting a date and time for an auction. Of course, the highest bidder wins.
The success of the sale will depend entirely on what information will be revealed in the book, as well as what evidence exists to support the book’s claims. Obviously, the more explosive the revelations and the better the proof, the bigger the advance will be.
The publishing deal
After the book is sold, the publisher will offer a contract, which will be modified in negotiations with the agent. For the most part, this is a standard contract in which the author usually receives ten-percent for the first 5,000 book sold, 12 1/2 percent for the second 5,000 books sold, and fifteen percent for all books sold after that.
However, a skilled negotiator can be helpful in securing a higher percentage of subsidiary issues, such as first-serial, paperback, film, and foreign rights.
After the contract is signed by the publisher and the co-authors, the publisher will authorize the first payment of the advance. For instance, a publisher may agree to give the authors one-third of the advance upon signing of the contract, the second-third upon the publisher’s acceptance of half the manuscript, and the final-third upon the publisher’s acceptance of the final manuscript.
The publisher must recoup the entire advance from future sales before the co-authors receive any more royalties.
The publishing process
After the various rough drafts, here are the predictable incarnations of the manuscript:
1. The final draft.
2. The private edits by my personal editor, who has reviewed the manuscripts of all eight of my previous books—before I submitted them to my publishers. (She will be my responsibility. Her money will come exclusively from my cut.)
3. The overview work by our principal editor at a publishing house.
4. The line-by-line review by our copy editor at the publishing house.
5. The printed galleys—and there could be as many as three.
6. The page proofs.
7. The blues.
8. The final bound copy.
If you have any comments or questions, please call me, day or night.
Once again, thank you for your consideration.
After Franzese approved the proposal, he invited me, via our mutual friend, to his home in Brooklyn to meet with him.
However, just as I was preparing for my trip, I received a call out of the blue from one of Franzese’s top lieutenants, who then tried to shake me down for thirty percent of my already meager 34-percent cut of the anticipated royalties.
When I suggested that any money he received should come from Franzese, he replied, “I am going to make your life a little easier.”
On principle, I refused to accept the shakedown offer and complained to Franzese—again through our mutual friend who essentially told me that this was “the price of doing business.”
I immediately pulled out of the book project without ever meeting or even speaking with Franzese.
But I did revisit a lesson that I have learned during my many years as a crime reporter. . . . As a rule, never do business with Mafia guys or their associates. More often than not, civilians, like me, simply cannot trust them or their self-proclaimed words of “honor.” In short, they do not honor or respect us.
Notably, a book about Franzese—with his cooperation before his death in February 2020 at 103 years old—was published in 2022, which I heard was very good. I considered calling the co-author, a well-known investigative reporter in New York, to ask whether the collaborator had a similar experience as mine. But I reconsidered, believing that to be intrusive, presumptuous, and in bad taste.
Consequently, I did not make the call. But I hope that this co-author received a little more respect than I did.
BTW: A few years ago, I received information from a trusted source that the family of one of the big stars at Fox News, whom he named, had a long personal—and possibly even a business—relationship with Sonny Franzese, which is not addressed in the mobster’s memoir.
Can anyone help me with this?
Does it rhyme with parlson?