Bill Clinton Book Auction Put on Hold As the former president has run of bad P.R., publishers are told not to expect meetings that had been promised for February. by Sara Nelson

Friday, February 23 04:01 P.M.

Bill Clinton has a lot on his plate these days -- what with the fallout from last-minute pardons, misbehaving relatives and such -- so one thing that will be removed, for the time being, is a book deal.

New York publishers were told last month to expect to be summoned to meetings with the former president in February. With the month rapidly running out, those meetings have not been scheduled and no new dates have been set.

''Clinton might be worried that his price has gone down,'' with all the scandals swirling around him, says one industry watcher. ''On the other hand, maybe now would be a good buying opportunity'' for publishers without the deep pockets to pay a huge advance, according to one executive whose house was passed over by Hillary Clinton last December.

D.C. attorney Robert Barnett -- who represents both Clintons in book matters -- could not be reached for comment by publication time. But one editor who speaks to him regularly says that Barnett notified her before the recent scandals broke that ''(Clinton) just wasn't ready to do it yet.''

Former First Lady and now Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton sold her book on Dec. 15 to Simon & Schuster for $8 million, after weeks of meetings and a heated auction. Virtually all of the large publishers -- including imprints of Random House, HarperCollins and the von Holzbrinck group -- competed. Some of those same publishers confirmed that they'd been notified that the meetings on Bill Clinton's book would be delayed.

Earlier this month, Barnett sold former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright's memoir to Talk Miramax Books for almost $1 million, and earlier this week, he began shopping an investment book from former SEC Chairman Arthur Levitt. •

DAMAGED GOODS: CLINTON BOOK AUCTION PUT ON HOLD...

-- Ain't Gonna Happen (Not Here Not@ever.com), February 23, 2001