With all of publishing’s lay-offs and cut-backs it was interesting to see where publishers felt their cold-hard-cash was best spent. So we here at BookFetish took a look at what books are on deck for the coming months and how much was put out on their behalf.

Celebrity

• On the celebrity front, we have Tina Fey getting $6 million to write humorous essays, Nora Ephron style. Tina is one of the hottest comedic writers and actors right now, so it wasn’t hard to understand why Little Brown wanted a piece of the action; however, $6 mill seemed quite a high price to pay for a laugh.
• A few notches down on the funny scale is Kathy Griffin, who is being paid $2 million for her memoirs. Now, I'm not a Kathy Griffin hater, like everyone else seems to be, so good for her for getting hers. However, life on the D List hasn’t exactly made me wonder what her childhood was like.
• On that note, Miley Cyrus is still in her childhood, and she’s being paid $7 million to write her memoirs for Disney. Does a 15-year-old have memoirs? What can she tell us that would be the least bit interesting? More to the point, what can she tell us that we don’t already know about her?
• Speaking of knowing everything about someone, it’s reported that Britney Spears turned down $3 million from three different publishers for her life story. Not that she needs the money, but I guess if she’s going to spill it, she wants a little more for her efforts.
• Pilot Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger is getting paid $3 million for two books for HarperCollins – apparently saving the lives of an entire plane full of people doesn’t rate as high as being funny, crazy or blowing an underwear model.

• Apparently, Sarah Palin’s brand of crazy seemed to be worth more; HarperCollins is reportedly paying her $11 million to tell us stuff we don’t care to know.
• Rod Blogojevich getting paid a reported six figures to write about the “dark side of politics.” I guess you could say he’s writing what he knows.
• Condolezza Rice has to write three books to get her payday of $2.5 million
• David Plouffe, Obama’s campaign manager and fundraising genius, gets $2 million.
• Speaking of genius, George W. takes the prize with a $7 million motivator to write about what he would do if he were president.
• Speaking of George W., Dick Cheney's memoirs are due in 2011. No word on the advance, although it's speculated to be around $2 million. An imprint of Simon & Schuster will be taking on the ex-VP's musings of his career in government from chief of staff under President Lincoln... I mean Ford...and events such as WWI and Pearl Harbor... I mean Vietnam and Watergate...to the Gulf War and September 11th. It's said that books by VPs aren't usually of interest, unless they are going to run for president. Sadly, that's four long years from now. You can only hope old Dick is around long enough to do the book signings -- recent events have shown that 50 is the new dead and at 68, Cheney is... well you know.