Skip to content

Can’t see this being economic

Barack and Michelle Obama are poised to make at least $60 million (£49 million) from a book deal.

Even on a high royalty deal they’d need to sell 10 – 15 million copies to make that back. Seriously? Political memoirs?

21 thoughts on “Can’t see this being economic”

  1. Syndication of the Obama reality show on Netflix has to be worth a $ or two. He’ll make Bruce Jenner a nobody when he finally ‘transitions’.

  2. So Much For Subtlety

    The Iranians are planning on buying 10 million copies. Got to say thank you some how.

  3. The money isn’t an investment in hope of making a profit on book sales anymore than donations to the Clinton Foundation were seriously made in the hope the money would be spent altruistically. It’s buying influence and favor and nothing more.

  4. When the news mentioned just now that this is the highest book deal since Bill ‘rapist’ Clinton’s, it became obvious that this is just buying influence with the socialists.

    Has Barry set up his foundation yet?

  5. The US is a big country, plenty of twats who’ll buy it. Plenty elsewhere too. Carrying a copy will be a prime signal of virtue for liberals under The Donald’s regime.

  6. Journalists and numbers don’t mix. They choose the biggest number to make attractive headlines. $60m could well be total gross sales. It won’t be net profit.

  7. When it’s made a compulsory text for a number of subjects in schools all over the world, particularly in Europe by the militant tendency who operate Western education systems, it’ll sell well.

    Yes We Can

  8. “Yes We Can”

    I’d pay good money to sit in on the court case Bob The Builder vs Barack Obama.

  9. Bloke in North Dorset

    Of course it will sell well. Who wouldn’t buy a book by a Noble Peace Prize winner talking about how he bombed the shit out of other countries using drones?

    You might get a few golfers buying it wall, if he writes well about the courses he’s played.

  10. Hardly surprising. The publishing industry’s as much a part of the political/media bubble as any other section of the MSM. THEY don’t understand how Trump was elected, because they don’t know anyone who voted for him & THEY would certainly buy an Obama tome so it could virtue signal from their coffee table. Their business decisions are influenced by the world as they see it.

  11. So Much For Subtlety

    I think we are all missing the real point – which ought to be why would any sane person publish with Penguin? This is a pay off. The Obamas will not make that sort of money any more than Hillary’s last few books did. Or Chelsea’s next book will.

    But they keep shoveling cash at them. Whose cash? It must be Penguin moving money from books that do sell to the political causes they like. Which is to say, they are taking money earned by real authors and giving it to political hacks.

    If you were a real author why would you agree to this?

  12. You’ve got it all wrong Tim.

    The method is not to declare something to be non-economic. The method is to presume that the actors involved believe that it’s economic, and then explain why that is so.

    So why would they do this?
    1) They expect to be able to sell that many books. Maybe.
    2) They are bidding on the option value of follow-up books. Quite possibly.
    3) It’s payback. Doubtful, but there were enough favors done that it’s possible.
    4) The Obamas will have post-presidency influence like the Clintons did (so some portion of it is a bribe). Yep.
    5) It’s a principal-agent problem: managers are spending owner’s money, and there aren’t enough checks and balances. Always.

    Those are just for starters.

  13. Isn’t the major factor the amount of the advance? His memoirs about daddy are 1603 on the Amazon list. The advance is cold hard cash : future earnings are like a mining company’s reserves. If the publisher is really shelling out $60m, then this might be another way in which low interest rates are distorting the real economy, along with gilts, pension fund values, insurance premia, share prices house prices etc

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *