By Jeph Ajobaju, Chief Copy Editor
Barack Obama is making progress with his White House memoir, handcrafting it by himself on legal pads, and is expected to be another best seller, like his Dreams from My Father and The Audacity Of Hope.
But bookworms, critics and fans alike, may have to wait till 2020 for the latest book of the former United States president whose Dreams from My Father had sold millions before his historic stint in the White House.
Publisher Penguin Random House has alerted foreign partners and others that the memoir is not expected to be released this year.
That sets up the prospect of the highly anticipated book being published in 2020 and competing for spotlight with the usual blanket media coverage of the U.S. presidential campaign.
Obama, an accomplished author, also wrote Of Thee I Sing: A Letter to My Daughters (2010), a children’s book, besides Dreams from My Father (1995) and The Audacity Of Hope (2006).
The first two books raised the profile of then U.S. senator, plus his gift of the garb, all of which helped him win the White House in 2008, where he served as the first African-American president from 2009 to 2017.
Both books have been translated into several languages and have combined sales of over 7.5 million copies in the U.S. and Canada alone.
Time Magazine in 2011 listed Dreams from My Father on its top 100 non-fiction books written in English since 1923.
Obama is handwriting the first draft of his memoir on legal pads, the same technique he used for Dreams from My Father and numerous White House speeches.
In 2017, he and his wife, Michelle, signed a two-book deal with Penguin Random House — reportedly in the $60 million range and “the highest advance ever paid in the history of book publishing.”
The previous record advance for the memoir of a former U.S. president is believed to be $15 million for Bill Clinton’s My Life published in 2004, three years after he left the White House.
When Michelle’s Becoming was published in November 2018, it quickly became one of the most popular political memoirs in world history.
In its first week, the book sold 1.4 million copies in various formats and, in 15 days, shot up to the best-selling book of the year in the US.
At release, Becoming was translated into 13 languages and, by March 2019, had sold more than 10 million copies worldwide.
Michelle’s first book American Grown: The Story of the White House Kitchen Garden and Gardens Across America was written in 2012.
In the U.S., former presidents’ memoirs are almost mandatory and the political class regard them as must-read, along with those of former first ladies.
However, the timing of Obama’s expected book release in 2020 is tricky.
The launch could thrust Obama back into the spotlight just as Democratic voters are choosing a presidential nominee, prompting fresh discussion of his legacy, and putting him on the spot about the candidates hoping to build on it.
That would be a delicate dance as Obama has made clear he has no plans to play a role in the Democratic presidential primary, including declining to endorse his Vice President, Joe Biden, or any other candidate.
But as the most popular Democrat in the U.S, even more than three years after leaving office, Obama’s every word about the campaign will be scrutinised for signs of which candidates he favours.