Pretty wow, if I say so myself-- since it isn't me. The Esquire requisition-- by Arnold Gingrich himself,-- to pay Thomas Pynchon for the Crying of Lot 49 excerpt.

[Mark Kohut]

No...this was the sum Ms Donadio negotiated with Esquire for the rights to
the section that appeared in Esquire.

Pre-publication rights, an agent/author's decision and right to sell
excerpts from a forthcoming work. (Can be post-pub too but....)

The publisher has no say and virtually unanimously loves these deals
because it builds buzz and always sells more books--or almost
as some believe too much excerpting of some books---political books,
memoirs etc the most major--- lead some publishers/agents to not want
to sell some key parts. I believe from all of my book experience that the
more that is excerpted, the greater the sales. Although a few as smart and
experienced as I am or amn't , differ---in an unreproducible alternative
marketplace of judgment only. (major discussion with a v good Walden/Borders
buyer over Krushchev's memories which were very heavily excerpted
somewhere, the book still sold at hign bestseller levels but he thought
they could have been
higher.

Hersey's *Hiroshima* and Roth's *The Ghostwriter* appeared in The New
Yorker whole  yet were among the highest sellers of the writers' works.

Thanks for asking, David.

On Wed, Aug 25, 2021 at 12:51 PM David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com> wrote:

> It’s impossible to understand *anything* about this $800 payment w/o any
> context.  Like, was “fair use” violated, and, if so, how?  That would be my
> first question.
>
> David Morris
>
> On Wed, Aug 25, 2021 at 12:45 PM Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> https://twitter.com/DanielTorday/status/1430549770146250754/photo/1
>> --
>> Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
>>
>