David Remnick writes in The New Yorker:
When Obama leaves the White House, on January 20, 2017, he will write a memoir. “Now, that’s a slam dunk,” the former Obama adviser David Axelrod told me. Andrew Wylie, a leading literary agent, said he thought that publishers would pay between seventeen and twenty million dollars for the book—the most ever for a work of nonfiction—and around twelve million for Michelle Obama’s memoirs. (The First Lady has already started work on hers.)
Which one do you think will have the even lower finished-to-purchased ratio?
Remnick's long article features extensive analyses from Obama about how, on the one hand, the President should never say anything interesting, but, on the other hand, interesting things are those the President should never say. The article can't have set literary agents on fire with anticipation.
One possibility is that, having never said anything interesting in decades in anticipation of becoming President, Obama has been saving up the huge number of brilliant insights and hilarious zingers he's dreamed up, and will unload them all in his $20 million book. An alternative is that he hasn't actually thought up anything all that interesting, and that's what the people who will pay for this book want more of.
Remnick's long article features extensive analyses from Obama about how, on the one hand, the President should never say anything interesting, but, on the other hand, interesting things are those the President should never say. The article can't have set literary agents on fire with anticipation.
One possibility is that, having never said anything interesting in decades in anticipation of becoming President, Obama has been saving up the huge number of brilliant insights and hilarious zingers he's dreamed up, and will unload them all in his $20 million book. An alternative is that he hasn't actually thought up anything all that interesting, and that's what the people who will pay for this book want more of.
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32 comments:
this is part of the payoff for obama's adherence to neoliberal economics. That and the speaking and appearance fees that come after his term of office. He and wifey will rake in 100 mill just like the clintons and bush did. Just like all the senators that get voted out do.
The payoff for what they do in office comes afterward.
12 million for michelle obama's memoirs. that just about says it all.
OT, 60 minutes had some distant relative of Obama's trying to drive a car on the program.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6h-9GynQ4yY
Actually, it was just some "lost boys" or something like that. If you watch the full segment on 60 minutes
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OeyXa2dBqEk (16:17 in)
The most interesting part are the crackpots who are bringing these people into the west. Its all these do gooder liberal types, notice the episcopalian influence. The guy in the car video above was identified as an investment banker, Its as if screwing up on wall street wasn't enough, now their really trying to screw main street.
Slow down, Steve. I can't keep up!
Has Michelle checked to see if Bernadine Dohrn is available?
Both will be runaway bestsellers. Remember Hillary's memoir? It sold a million copies in the first month. I imagine these will do even better, given the number of worshipers that Obamas have.
I'm sure they will donate all the proceeds from these books to the poor to reduce income inequality and stuff.
Especially Michelle ...
Chump change compared to the money he will make in stocks as an adviser to Silicon Valley companies, Hollywood and Wall Street. And he'll be in on the ground floor of every new company for the next 20 years. He'll probably be the first billionaire ex-President.
Won't anyone think of the trees!
I like to imagine what it's like to be Michelle Obama reminiscing. Bitterness is in some ways underrated.
this is part of the payoff for obama's adherence to neoliberal economics. That and the speaking and appearance fees that come after his term of office. He and wifey will rake in 100 mill just like the clintons and bush did. Just like all the senators that get voted out do.
The payoff for what they do in office comes afterward.
Right. This is all legalized corruption. Of course none of this counts towards measures of corruption in studies they do.
I remember reading someplace that the true main source of income for a lot of liberal papers, journals and certain books was not consumer purchases but library / institutional bulk buys - that is, taxes. My local library has a dozen copies of Dreams, and no one ever checks any of them out. I'm sure it's the same everywhere, and the booksellers know the same thing will happen with the new books too.
'Bestseller' lists don't always exclude the numbers bought by institutions, so Amazon individual numbers are probably more accurate of actual demand and interest.
So, what I really want is three numbers. 1. Printed, of which 2. Bought, of which 3. Bought by individuals.
You want to exclude the institutional factor altogether, so the ratio you really want is 3:(1-2+3)
Why does anyone think it will be a work of non-fiction?
Anon.
The publishing world will hand the Obamas money in precisely the same spirit that Carthaginians used to hand Ba'al Hammon children.
Too black to fail.
Of course it will be a best seller.
A lot of Obamabots will buy it.
But also, a lot of alphabet gang unions will buy it in bulk and stuff the boxes in basements never to see the light of day again.
It's mystifying to me that Obama can even write memoirs of his time as President. Because while he actually is President, most of the time he pretends like he isn't President when bad news that he caused hits.
"this is part of the payoff for obama's adherence to neoliberal economics. That and the speaking and appearance fees that come after his term of office. He and wifey will rake in 100 mill just like the clintons and bush did. Just like all the senators that get voted out do.
The payoff for what they do in office comes afterward.
"Right. This is all legalized corruption. Of course none of this counts towards measures of corruption in studies they do.""
It is most likely corruption, but it is not a payoff for 'neoliberal economics'.
Now that post-serving U.S. presidents can earn multi-millions via books, speaking, consulting, etc., can anyone tell me why we still have presidential pensions? And taxpayer-paid security? And taxpayer-paid office staff?
Let them pay for their own. They've lived on the taxpayer's dole for four or eight years; let them buy their own future lifestyle.
No one knew that we had broken the Enigma code until 1976 with "The Man Called Intrepid". That's thirty years after the events.
We only knew about Soviet spying in 2000 with "The Venona Secrets"- fifty years after the events.
Some of the secrets about Aaron Burr and his conspiracy took more than a century to be publicly revealed.
So it is very unlikely that either Barrack's or Michelle's book will tell us much that we don't already know. It is just too soon.
There will be another book and it will have plenty of surprises. It won't be written by anyone favorable to the Obamas. Expect it sometime around 2080.
Albertosaurus
As someone stated, this is simply a payoff for Obama support for copyright law, and all the other benefits that gone to Big Media.
Obama says that while some Americans oppose him because he's black, "there are some black folks and maybe some white folks who give me the benefit of the doubt because I'm black." Remnick immediately adds that "the latter group has been less in evidence of late." Remnick is more of an Obama apologist than Obama is!
"leftist conservative said...
this is part of the payoff for obama's adherence to neoliberal economics. That and the speaking and appearance fees that come after his term of office. He and wifey will rake in 100 mill just like the clintons and bush did. Just like all the senators that get voted out do.
The payoff for what they do in office comes afterward."
Bingo. This is the new bribery. Don't pay the whore until AFTER she (or in this case he) puts out.
Of course none of it will actually be written by them; others will do the work of putting it together. The Obamas' will put their name on it and take all the credit. Just like when he reads speeches that are written by others off the teleprompter and then basks in the glow of applause and compliments of how great an orator he is when in fact he may not even have known what he was to say a half hour prior. It's all fake, it's all staged. They've got hairdressers, makeup artists, wardrobe advisors, lighting technicians, speech and acting coaches, the whole deal, just like a Hollywood movie. Michelle's alleged 'book' will probably have less gravitas than Barbara Bush's 'book' about her dog Millie.
If Obama actually wrote his own book it would be pretty much the same book that Jack Nicholson wrote in "The Shining."
He's just an empty suit Obama. Just a frontman for the powers that be...
Obama says that while some Americans oppose him because he's black, "there are some black folks and maybe some white folks who give me the benefit of the doubt because I'm black." Remnick immediately adds that "the latter group has been less in evidence of late." Remnick is more of an Obama apologist than Obama is!
Yeah, I found the zero's comments to be rather tepid, really. Of course there are some whites who don't want a black president, even a competent one, and many more whites who want a black president, and are willing to give him extra credit because he's black. I mean, he fudged on the ratios, but otherwise what he said was obviously true. I think conservatives are overdoing the criticism on this one.
I hope Obama tells us what Thamsanqa Jantjie is really like.
And will Michelle tell us if she was as pissed as she appeared to be at the Mandela funeral?
Remnick reads in this interview like he's gone full retard. Seems like a real comedown from Harold Ross or William Shawn.
Garbage like this fits in with the same culture of mediocrity that spawned bilge like Kardashian reality shows et al.
Obama and wife have never done an honest day's work in their lives, nor authored anything of academic and/or literary value, and yet have had the world handed to them on a silver platter. The usual liberal calculus is at play: compensation inverse to utility/work done, and proportional with outright malevolence and animosity toward the interests of America.
I'd actually pay good money to read what Michelle really thinks about...stuff. I suspect it might be quite interesting. Barack, on the other hand? No way.
He will not really write an interesting book (insights on politics of the "how to win" or secret shit that happened). He has a huge built in audience of admirers who will buy it. Many who won't read it...but it will sit on the shelf proudly. He may mix in a few things to zing enemies or "have the last word" or because he figures it will be reported forward. But he has too many irons in the fire to really write a kiss and tell.
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