Former President Biden has secured a $10 million advance for his upcoming presidential memoir — a sum that pales in comparison to the massive deals landed by the Obamas and Bill Clinton, according to reports.
Biden, 82, struck the deal with Hachette Book Group, which is said to have offered the eight-figure advance, sources told The Wall Street Journal.
The memoir’s publisher, Hachette’s Little, Brown & Co., has yet to announce an official release date.
In 2017, former President Barack Obama and former First Lady Michelle Obama sold the rights to their memoirs to Penguin Random House in a record-shattering deal worth $60 million.
Meanwhile, Alfred A. Knopf — a subsidiary of Penguin Random House’s parent company Bertelsmann — paid $15 million for former President Bill Clinton’s 2004 memoir, “My Life.”
Former President Trump has yet to publish a presidential memoir following his first term.
Earlier this month, Biden remarked that he has been “working my tail off” to complete his own memoir.
Biden is represented by Creative Artists Agency, which negotiated the worldwide rights for the book with Hachette. The agency also represented him for his 2017 memoir, “Promise Me, Dad: A Year of Hope, Hardship and Purpose,” which recounted his final year with his eldest son, Beau, who passed away from brain cancer in 2015.
Hachette and Creative Artists Agency did not immediately respond to The Post’s requests for comment.
In May, a spokesperson for Biden revealed that the former president has an “aggressive” form of prostate cancer, though it “appears to be hormone-sensitive, which allows for effective management.” His health could potentially influence the timeline for the memoir’s release.
Biden has suggested that the book will reflect on his four years as president. The veteran politician also served eight years as vice president under the Obama administration.
He withdrew from the presidential race in late July of last year after a disastrous debate performance and a freezing episode fueled claims that he was mentally unfit to serve.
In its first 24 hours, Barack Obama’s memoir A Promised Land sold 890,000 copies in the U.S. and Canada, outpacing Michelle Obama’s Becoming with 725,000 first-day sales and Bill Clinton’s My Life with 400,000.
By just one month after its 2020 release, sales of Barack’s memoir had exceeded 3.3 million copies—nearly matching the lifetime totals of Clinton’s and George W. Bush’s memoirs, at 3.5 million and 4 million copies, respectively.
