Former President Joe Biden has signed a memoir deal worth far less than those of his predecessors, The Wall Street Journal reported.
Biden secured an advance of roughly $10 million from the Hachette Book Group for his upcoming memoir, sources familiar with the matter told the WSJ. The amount pales in comparison to the advances given to many recent presidents, and even first ladies, to chronicle their time at the White House.
In 2017, former President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama reportedly signed a joint publishing deal with Penguin Random House worth around $60 million. Publisher Alfred A. Knopf paid former President Bill Clinton $15 million in 2004 for the rights to his autobiography “My Life,” which is equivalent to over $26 million today after adjusting for inflation.
Hachette Book Group did not respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.
This will be Biden’s third memoir, following “Promises to Keep: On Life and Politics,” published in 2007, and 2017’s “Promise Me, Dad: A Year of Hope, Hardship, and Purpose,” which focused on his final year with his oldest son, Beau, who died from brain cancer in 2015. Obama has also published three books, including his most recent 2020 memoir, “A Promised Land,” which sold over 890,000 copies in its first 24 hours.
“I’m working like hell with a publisher to write another 500-page book,” Biden said in early July, noting that he was doing “a lot of research.” The upcoming memoir will primarily focus on his four years as president, according to WSJ.
The book’s release date has not been announced yet.
Biden revealed in May that he had been diagnosed with an aggressive form of prostate cancer that has metastasized to the bone. Some have questioned whether the cancer — which typically takes at least five years to spread to the bone — was already identified while Biden was in office but kept from the public.
Biden’s mental decline — and the concerted effort by Democrats to conceal it — is now the subject of a major investigation by the House Oversight Committee. Key members of Biden’s inner circle, including Anthony Bernal, former senior advisor to Jill Biden, have declined to cooperate with investigators or invoked the Fifth Amendment.
The extent of Biden’s failing mental acuity in office has been documented in multiple recent exposés. Despite dismissing concerns about Biden’s cognitive decline throughout his four years in office, many Democrats have now admitted that the former president should have stepped down much sooner, while downplaying their knowledge of his condition.
Near the end of his presidency, Biden issued numerous clemencies and pardons. However, the former president didn’t personally approve each name but signed off on the criteria and standards to be applied, according to The New York Times.
All of Biden’s pardons from December 2024 to January 2025 — including those for family members, Dr. Anthony Fauci and Gen. Mark Milley — were signed by autopen, except for the preemptive pardon for his son Hunter, which he signed personally.
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