Prince’s memoir set to be released in time for the holiday season

Prince‘s unfinished memoirs will be published later this year and may include reproductions of his handwritten pages. ICM Partners’ Esther Newberg, spoke about representing the book during Variety‘s weekly podcast Strictly Business, and shed light on the process in nailing Prince down to a book deal. Newberg said she had brought three editors to Prince’s Paisley Park complex in Minneapolis, and struck the deal with Prince just prior to his death  in April 2016 at age 57. The book was first announced last year under the title The Beautiful Ones after Prince’s 1984 Purple Rain classic. The memoir will be published by Spiegel & Grau, an imprint of Random House.

Newberg said of the process of lining up the editors to meet with Prince, recalling, “It’s never been done before. Editors don’t like to be in the same room making their pitches to the same potential clients. We had to do it because I knew he would not want to meet individually with editors.” The book, which Prince was writing with Dan Piepenbring, will span from Prince’s earliest memory through his iconic 2007 Super Bowl halftime performance.

Prince explained that he measured his success on producing his music to his satisfaction — as opposed to airplay and sales figures: “No, not so much, because once I do the music, it’s a success there. That’s it for me. Now, on the sellin’ tip — for example, if an album goes down the charts, that isn’t something I can control. I just did the music.”

Prince went on to say that celebrating his music shouldn’t spread over into taking a pronounced interest in his life beyond the stage: “I’m like this; my music is my music, that’s pretty much what you come to the party for. If I give you something else, that’s me giving you something else. If you seek something else, then there’s something inside of you that’s lacking, I would think. So, that I actually think personal means personal.”