Sphere scoops TV presenter Chapman's 'extraordinary' memoir

Sphere has scooped Nicki Chapman’s "riveting" memoir of the Nineties and Noughties music scene in So Tell Me What You Want. 

Emily Barrett, outgoing publisher, acquired world rights from Kerr MacRae at Kerr MacRae LPA. Chapman’s memoir will be published by editor Serena Brett and Kelly Ellis, who will succeed Barrett in January, for publication in July 2024. 

Chapman currently presents "Escape to the Country", "Wanted Down Under" and coverage of the RHS Chelsea Flower Show. Before she was on camera, Chapman worked as a plugger and management executive in the music industry and then switched to working in front of the camera on "Pop Stars" and "Pop Idol". 

Of So Tell Me What You Want, the publisher wrote: "This is the story of the queen – who wasn’t so much a marionette pulling strings as a down-to-earth, no-nonsense team player who made it in music management when it was very much a man’s world." 

Barrett commented: "‘When Nicki first shared her reminisces of her music career with me – holding Bowie’s cigarette while he went out on stage, trying to keep fans dressing up as security away from Take That, signing up Amy Winehouse after being handed a tape from her best friend, being part of the making of Girl Power with the Spice Girls – I was immediately obsessed and had to hear more, and I’m positive readers who both already know Nicki and
those who have yet to have that pleasure will feel exactly the same. This is part extraordinary memoir – the stratospheric rise of such a good-natured woman in an era when the music industry (and world) was so dominated by sexism – and part riveting music and social history." 

Chapman added: "Why I have decided to write a book? Well, for years people have asked me but I was never convinced I wanted to. Who would be interested in my story? Then, as many of you know, a few years ago I had a brain tumour. I was incredibly lucky that it was operable and I survived it. I try quite hard not to dwell on it, but when something like that happens to you, it does make you look back and think about your life. What’s happened in the past, what have you achieved ? And the part of my life that I found myself looking back at the most was my career in the Nineties and Noughties, when I worked in the music industry having the most incredible time with some of the world’s biggest artists. People now know me off the TV, but this is how it all started. Oh yes, I’m talking Prince, Bowie, Amy Winehouse, Phil Collins, Take That, S Club 7 and the Spice Girls."