talkmagic.co.uk

itricks.com - Herbert Becker’s awful reputation amongst the magic community might be ready for the mainstream. The publisher, who so rankles magicians he said he might add a chapter to his new book devoted only to hate mail, is considering publishing the controversial O.J. Simpson book “If I Did It, Here’s How It Happened”.

Becker has made a career publishing the secrets of magicians, with his latest target being David Blaine. Despite the vocal backlash of the secretive community, he maintains that he’s helped revive a dying industry by creating more interest in magic.

iTricks interviewed Becker about the Blaine book, due out 2008, last week.

The “If I Did It” book, an explanation from the perspective of the former NFL running back on how he would have committed the murders, raised a fire storm in late 2006. The book’s release was supposed to be accompanied by a two-part television interview of Simpson by publisher Judith Regan, however, the intense criticism that ensued led to the book and specials being cancelled by parent company News Corp. and Regan being fired shortly afterward for allegedly using anti-Semitic slurs.


Ironically, in the most recent iTricks Magic Week In Review podcast while discussing the effectiveness of fan petitions protesting Becker’s upcoming Blaine book, host Justin Robert Young and iTricks publisher Andrew Mayne used the Simpson book as an example of how big of an outcry is required to have a project shelved.

The two will discuss this topic in the newest edition of the podcast to be uploaded Monday.

According to an interview with The Gazette, Becker said that he is waiting for the rights of the book to be decided between the family of Ron Goldman (who were awarded a piece of Simpson’s earnings from the murder’s civil trial) and publisher HarperCollins. Considering his turbulent history in the magic field, Becker seems poised to receive the wave of likely overwhelming negative publicity.

“To me, I see it as no different than buying an Agatha Christie,” he said. “It’s simply a novel about how a murder took place.”