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No ‘ifs’ about releasing OJ story
If I Did It. By OJ Simpson. Gibson Square Books £12.99
GIBSON Square Books, an independent publisher based in Islington, is to release OJ Simpson’s controversial book If I Did It, after paying five figures for UK rights in its biggest-ever deal.
The book, billed by Simpson as his “hypothetical” account of how he would have killed Ron Goldman and Nicole Brown Simpson, will be published on November 11. What’s more, its jacket will have the “if” of the title barely visible.
“We have a fading ‘if’,” publisher Martin Rynja tells The Bookseller. “It’s just about visible – you have to look really carefully or you could easily miss it. It reflects the grey area of the case.”
The look was inspired by the jacket of the Beaufort Books edition that has seen soaring sales in the US, where the “If” appears in tiny black letters inside the letter “I”, and the “I Did It” appears in red.
The US edition is pitched as a confessional and comes with “an exclusive commentary” from the Goldman family who won the rights, as a contribution to trial costs. But the book has still sparked outrage from the family of Simpson’s other alleged victim, Nicole Brown Simpson.
It has been mired in controversy from the very beginning.
It was initially bought by HarperCollins US, but quickly dropped in the face of a public outcry.
The acquiring editor Judith Regan was sacked soon after. According to Gibson Square, which prides itself on publishing books that “provoke debate”, UK rights to If I Did It were also being chased by a number of other British publishers. But many predicted it could spell a commercial and public relations disaster, because of the strength of public condemnation and the relative lack of interest in Simpson’s sporting career as an American football player.
Even red-top publisher John Blake, who had expressed strong interest in the book, was warded off by legal complications.
“We would have been the ideal publisher for it, but it was too difficult to negotiate,” Blake admits.
Rynja says Gibson Square’s staff unanimously backed the decision to publish the book. He said the outrage was driven by the notion that Simpson could be profiting from crime, but that there is a sense of justice in the idea that the proceeds will go to the family of one of his victims.
GERALD ISAAMAN
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