Barack and Michelle Obama whipped the literary world into a frenzy with the news that the former president and first lady were getting to work on new books, and now they have found a publisher.
Just a few hours after multiple people with knowledge of the joint publishing deal told the Financial Times that bidding had surpassed $60million, The New York Times reveals that the couple has inked a deal with Penguin Random House.
The terms of the deal have not been disclosed however at this time.
It was Penguin who appeared to have the slight edge, having published Barack's three previous titles.
News of the deal comes just before President Donald Trump is set to address his first joint session of Congress since taking office.
'We are absolutely thrilled to continue our publishing partnership with President and Mrs. Obama,' the chief executive of Penguin Random House, Markus Dohle, said in a statement.
'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.'
Dohle then added: 'Now, we are very much looking forward to working together with President and Mrs. Obama to make each of their books global publishing events of unprecedented scope and significance.'
As part of the deal penguin will also donate 1million books in the Obamas name, a move that might have taken down the price paid in the deal.
There is no release date for either of the memoirs.
No book deal has ever come close to paying an author this much money, with the closest example being the the $150million James Patterson reportedly received from Hachette in 2009 as part of a 17-book deal.
That breaks down to a little less than $10million a book, as opposed to he $30million Barack and Michelle each stand to make in their deal.
The amount currently on the table for the Obamas eclipses the $15million Bill Clinton was paid for his post-White House memoir My Life which was released in 2004, and the $10million deal score by George W. Bush for the 2010 release Decision Points.
It also four times more than the reported $14million Hillary Clinton earned for her 2014 release Hard Choices about her time at the State Department.
She received $8million over a decade prior on 2001 for her first memoir, Living History. She was a New York senator at that time and had to have the deal approved by the Senate Ethics Committee.
President Donald Trump meanwhile received just a $500,000 advance for The Art of the Deal, which he split with the ghost writer of the book.
That book has gone on however to earn him millions in royalties, having made its way back on the bestsellers list back in 2004 when he launched The Apprentice and ever since announced his candidacy for president in 2015.
Barack previously shared stories from his life in The Audacity of Hope in 2006, which was released a little over two years before he landed in the Oval Office.
Barack has also published the children's book Of Thee I Sing: A Letter to My Daughters and the 2004 memoir Dreams from My Father.
Those books have all performed very nicely for their publisher and Barack, who made $15.6million off all three between 2005 and 2016, according to Forbes.
(culled from the daily Mail)
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