Obamas Make Book Deal Worth Over $60 Million
The one percent.
Obama once famously said: “I do think at a certain point you’ve made enough money.” The year was 2010 and he was addressing what he perceived as greed on Wall Street.
Now that he’s entering the lucrative post-presidency portion of his career, he’s set to become an incredibly wealthy man. Both he and the former First Lady have reached a book deal worth tens of millions.
Politico reports:
Barack and Michelle Obama reach book deal
Publisher Penguin Random House announced Tuesday it will publish books by former President Barack Obama and former first lady Michelle Obama.
The company has acquired worldwide publishing rights for two books, one from each of the Obamas. Terms of the agreement were not released, but the Financial Times reported on Tuesday that the auction for the rights to the books reached more than $60 million, citing people with knowledge of the sales process.
“With their words and their leadership, they changed the world, and every day, with the books we publish at Penguin Random House, we strive to do the same,” Penguin Random House CEO Markus Dohle said in a statement.
The New York Post offers some perspective on the size of the deal:
The former president and first lady are writing separate books, but selling them together, according to the Financial Times.
Penguin Random House did not reveal any titles, publishing dates or other details about the works also were not immediately available.
By contrast, publishers only plunked down $15 million for Bill Clinton’s 2004 autobiography “My Life” and $10 million for George W. Bush’s memoir “Decision Points,” according to past reports.
At least four publishing firms — including HarperCollins, Macmillan and Simon & Schuster — are vying for the rights, sources told the paper.
Penguin Random House has already published three other books by Barack Obama, including “Dreams from My Father,” which earned $6.8 million in royalties after it was released in 1995, The Hill reported.
It will be interesting to hear what Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren think of this development.
Featured image via YouTube.
DONATE
Donations tax deductible
to the full extent allowed by law.
Comments
What if he wrote a book and nobody bought it? Sweet. Then again, I have to wonder who the ghost writer will be.
I know I will NOT be buying that book.
No-one bought Hillary’s book…My guess would be unions and public libraries in blue zones.
Deduct $100k for a ghost writer…pretty sweet deal for a few book signings and no real work…
Obama was never known for being a worker.
It doesn’t matter that nobody will buy the book. This is just another political contribution like the Clintons used to receive. It’s money laundering.
Exactly. Random House is a privately held company. No shareholders to answer to for this kind of payoff.
I was surprised that Simon & Schuster didn’t manage to snag these. S&S has been very aggressive these last few decades in the pursuit of political sleaze.
Obama once famously said: “I do think at a certain point you’ve made enough money.”
That only applies to capitalists, not socialists!
In Obama’s mind, he hasn’t made enough yet.
Apparently he hasn’t reached that ‘certain point’ yet.
Remainders bins across America are eagerly waiting to receive these books.
Sounds like Penguin Random House will be losing between $40 and $50 millions.
This isn’t about business. This is about a NY publisher giving a big pile of Other People’s Money to a couple they Like a Whole Lot, so that they can Live in Style for the rest of their lives.
And allow them to afford to keep advancing the political views that the NY publisher dearly wants to see advanced.
warren will say you didn’t write that book and nobody will blink.
jack cashill will show a ghostwriter wrote it and suddenly the media will erupt with the racist meme.
Perhaps someone should ask Democrats whether a former President cashing in on the increased value of his name post-Presidency violates the emoluments clause.
Um, which foreign government do you claim is paying this? (Not that the clause applies to the president in the first place, even while he’s in office, nor does it apply to anybody once they’ve left office, but even if it did how do you imagine this deal would pose a problem?)
What’s
Michellesome ghostwriter pretending to be Michelle going to write about?She’s pretty tone-deaf, so maybe it’ll be a cookbook.
The proposed title is already out: “50 shades of arugula”
Maybe she’ll write about how she didn’t have the grades or the test scores to get admitted to an Ivy like Princeton (by her own admission), but she somehow was admitted anyway. Maybe she’ll write about how she failed the Illinois bar exam on her first attempt, but was able to keep her job at Sidley & Austin anyway. Maybe she’ll write about how she had a special partner “mentor” holding her hand at Sidley, but she still couldn’t cut it as a junior associate, and was let go after just a few years. Maybe she’ll write about how, after being fired from Sidley, she never held another job practicing law, and instead relied upon political favors (having a connected husband really pays off!) and obtained specially-made-for-her political patronage jobs where she didn’t do anything of value, but still managed to take home six-figure paychecks.
But who are we kidding? It won’t be the ugly truth, just more of the same MSM-approved BS (“Michelle gave up a successful career as a lawyer to be First Lady!”) that the Obamas had made their phony (but very lucrative) careers from.
I hope she provides the details of her sex change operation!
Or how about how to make $317k as VP of community relations at a hospital after making only $124k the year before.
Actually, I read in the Asia Times that Michelle Obama failed the bar two times, not just once. It was after she failed the bar exam a second time that Michelle was eased out of the fancy law firm.
That may be true. Based on the Illinois bar records, it was more than a year after she graduated law school before she was admitted to the Illinois bar. But the U.S. media doesn’t want to know, and refuses to report, the truth about this “successful, high-powered, Harvard-trained lawyer’s” lackluster (and practically non-existent) legal career. The myth of Michelle Obama is so much more compelling than the truth.
A payoff and a kickstart to Moo’s obnoxios political career.
Most expensive bird cage liner ever.
This oughtta make good kindling.
http://i41.tinypic.com/121pg5f.gif
ConradCA: http://i41.tinypic.com/121pg5f.gif
Interesting. According to your gif, the black kid was being chased by an armed white man, then turned to defend himself, and was shot dead.
Indeed, and if that had been what actually happened the trial would probably have had a different outcome. Thankfully, it’s only a stupid gif.
Milhouse: Indeed, and if that had been what actually happened the trial would probably have had a different outcome.
While the scenario described is consistent with the evidence, so are other scenarios; hence, there was reasonable doubt.
This just in, Barack and Michelle Obama’s unwritten books are already #1 on the New York Times Bestseller list!
Since he hasn’t written anything yet, this should be interesting. He got a terrorist bomber to write one of his books. Who’s next? A gitmo prisoner? An ISIS murderer?
They didn’t write that.
$60 million dollars straight into the Remainder Bin.
When Obama is questioned about the audacity of such a large book deal, expect him to quote Slick Willy – “I gotta pay the bills!”
It will help the little people think that he’s just like us
Shame on Penguin Random House…a boat load of $$ to people who doesn’t need it to hire a ghost writer for books no one will read. Ridiculous.
How many books will they have to sell for Random House to break even on that deal?
one. but there will be one hell of a sticker shock on it when checking out.
yet still less of a system shock then obamacare….
A little perspective. The film rights to the first two Harry Potter books were bought for under 1/6th of this. In order for the Obamas and their ghostwriter (Bill) to out-earn their advance, they’ll have to do extraordinarily well at the bookstores, particularly with so many other wanna-be presidents on the Dem side flacking their books over the next two years.
The sale of the books is irrelevant. This is simply a payoff.
It’d be interesting to track the source of the money S&S pays them.
Meantime, indict Hillary Clinton.
Will it have pictures? I love pictures!
He could title it ‘The Audacity of Dopes‘.
I agree with TheFineReport. No book can be reasonably expected to earn out an advance that large, ergo it’s a payoff. It would be interesting to know where the money is really coming from.
Undeserved lucre that neither of them would be able to earn at a merit-based, performance-based job in the private sector, but, hey — they both hit the jackpot — government “service.”
It’s becoming readily apparent to me, that, with respect to much of the Dumb-o-crat leadership, those who can never cut it in the private sector (or, who, find convenient, sanctimonious and contrived rationales of moral superiority for abstaining from doing so), end up working in government. Look at the worthless losers, there — Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Keith Ellison, Chuck Schumer, Nancy Pelosi, etc. etc.
Remember, when Obama’s not vacationing on a billionaire’s private island, or, raking in tens of millions of dollars, he’s tackling “income inequality” with a vengeance.
Let’s see if the Obamas donate the bulk of the advance to charity, so that they can live off a sum that represents the median household income in America, today. That would be putting their money where their self-aggrandizing, avaricious and hypocritical mouths are.
I was gonna say the grifters were back but it seems they never left.