Barack and Michelle Obama received $60 mil, while Bill Clinton received $15 mil
Joe Biden has sold his presidential memoir’s publishing rights for around $10 million, falling millions of dollars short of the sums that the Obamas and Bill Clinton received for their memoirs, according to a report Wednesday evening.
Biden sold the worldwide rights to his memoir, which does not yet have a publishing date, to the Hachette Book Group for “an advance in the range of $10 million,” the Wall Street Journal reported, citing people familiar with the matter.
Biden’s payout is significantly less than those of his predecessors. In 2017, former president Barack Obama and former first lady Michelle Obama received $60 million for the rights to their memoirs, according to reports at the time. Former president Bill Clinton was paid $15 million for his 2004 memoir My Life. President Donald Trump did not publish a memoir after his first term.
The news comes as reports indicate the Biden family has faced tightening finances following the former president’s exit from public office. “Biden, Inc., needs a source of revenue,” journalist Mark Halperin said in May, citing a source familiar with the Biden family. “The trough is empty, the spigot has shut down. They need a way to get back in the game to make big money to have the grandchildren fed and clothed and flown first-class.”
Biden’s paid speaking circuit has also reportedly fallen flat. “So far, few organizations have been willing to pay for Biden” to speak, the Journal reported in May, even though “Biden’s speaking fees, which can range from $300,000 to $500,000, are below what former President Barack Obama commands.”
The 82-year-old former president, who revealed in May that he had been diagnosed with prostate cancer, said earlier this month that he was “working my tail off” to write the memoir.
“Presidents and their spouses routinely shop memoirs after their time at the White House,” the Journal noted in its Wednesday report. “Such books can provide a major source of income, and help the public figures frame their legacies.”
Most Democrats, though, appear ready to move on from Biden, who dropped his reelection bid last July following a widely panned debate performance against Trump that amplified long-standing concerns about his cognitive decline. “The country would be better served if he rode off into the sunset,” a Democratic operative told Politico in April.
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