Even with the announcement by HarperCollins that they are creating a division to (essentially) do away with the venerable author’s advance, I can’t say I was stunned by the size of the advances offered the Clinton’s — a total of some 30 million, 15 of which went for Bill’s My Life. (He did very well with Giving too. I guess what goes around comes around.)
Now I am no judge because I hardly ever read books by politicians (the exceptions being Churchill and Moynihan). You would have had to pay me to read The Audacity of Hope on the basis of the cliché-ridden title alone – and that was before I learned its words came from “The Quotations of Chairman Wright.” And you can consider me jealous, since I am the author of ten books (an eleventh in the hopper) and only one of them had an initial advance in excess of fifty grand, even though they appeared on best seller lists, were made into movies, translated, reprinted, won prizes, etc. So I’m just envious but…
I would love to see the Clintons’ royalty statements. I would faint if one of the tomes involved here came within a country mile of earning out their advances. When I read that My Life had a fifteen million dollar advance – read that and weep, Stephen King – I could only roll my eyes. The number of books that would have to be produced and sold is staggering. Call Al Gore. On ecological grounds alone, it’s a major disgrace.
So what was Alfred Knopf (or rather Random House and its owner Bertelsmann) thinking when it shoveled this giant – until now hidden – sum of 15 million in Clinton’s direction for his book? What were they financing? Why not make a direct donation to Clinton Foundation and save all the paper? Beats me.
UPDATE: I have been informed in email by a fellow author that the Clintons did earn out their advances. If true, this unfortunately speaks yards about the reading habits of the American public. Frankly, I prefer a good Jacqueline Susann novel. [I loved Valley of the Dolls. -ed. There's a new Special Edition of the movie.]
PJM Home
Pajamas Media appreciates your comments that abide by the following guidelines:
1. Avoid profanities or foul language unless it is contained in a necessary quote or is relevant to the comment.
2. Stay on topic.
3. Disagree, but avoid ad hominem attacks.
4. Threats are treated seriously and reported to law enforcement.
5. Spam and advertising are not permitted in the comments area.
The clause regarding "hate speech" has been deleted because readers criticized it as being too loosely defined. We agreed.
These guidelines are very general and cannot cover every possible situation. Please don't assume that Pajamas Media management agrees with or otherwise endorses any particular comment. We reserve the right to filter or delete comments or to deny posting privileges entirely at our discretion. If you feel your comment was filtered inappropriately, please email us at story@pajamasmedia.com.
11 Comments
1. Lem:What are you talking about Roger?
Dan Rather compared Clinton’s “My Life” with the memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant.
I didn’t read My Life either but Bill, as we all know, was Americas first black president.
Surely there must have been something of historical value in there
I did read the Starr Report though.
Apr 5, 2008 - 10:29 am 2. OregonGuy:You and I won’t live to see the day when the amount paid for sales of these books is made public. I have no problem with big paychecks.
I am reminded of what others in the publishing industry had to say at the time of Senator Clinton’s deal. As I recall, didn’t she “beat the deadline” on needing to disclose the terms of her book deal?
Apr 5, 2008 - 11:12 am 3. NewcombCarlton:Roger, I don’t think large sales of books like the Clintons’ or Obama’s say anything about the reading habits of the American public. I believe people buy these books as mementoes of the politicians they admire and affirmations of their own righteousness for admiring them. I suspect a very small percentage of these books are thoroughly read.
Apr 5, 2008 - 11:26 am 4. Charlie (Colorado):As I guess someone else told you, the combined income seems to say that Bill made $29 million on the book, so it apparently earned out the advance and then some, especially with the second book.
What I can’t quite figure out is how? If he got 10 percent, that’s something like $3.50 each on the hardback My Life, $2.80 each on Giving in hardback, and about $2.00 each on My Life in paper (totalling both volumes and assuming if you bought the first you’d buy the second. This is being a little conservative in the sanse that it probably overstates the sames of the second volume.)
So that’s an average of $2.76, and that again is conservative in the sense that it probably overstates the average royalty (it weights the expensive book too heavily, it probably didn’t really get a third of the sales) and thus will tend to understand the number of copies this seems to imply.
That’s ten and a half million copies.
Conservatively.
After returns.
I guess it’s possible. Possible.
I’d sure love to know the terms of the actual contract, though.
Apr 5, 2008 - 11:31 am 5. David Thomson:I am just guessing—but what about the public and academic libraries that feel obligated to purchase copies of books written by the Clintons? Could that make the difference?
Apr 5, 2008 - 11:38 am 6. David:Why yes, Mr. Rather, we do see the similarities between the Seige of Vicksberg and The Seige of Monica (call the Insane Assylum, I am just trying to keep him calm, he is clearly nucking futs)
Apr 5, 2008 - 12:06 pm 7. Charlie (Colorado):Oh, God, David, I wouldn’t think so. Hmmm. (rummage about google). Okay, the American Library Association says there are 123,291 public libraries in the USA. So figuring even that they bought on average 2 copies each, that’s only about 3 percent of the sales.
Apr 5, 2008 - 12:50 pm 8. freetotem:I have seen the Clintons’ books prominently displayed in stores around Europe, as well. I don’t know if the Europeans are reading them, or they are selling to American tourists. But if Bill is a s popular abroad as is claimed by many, maybe that’s where a lot of the books are sold.
Apr 5, 2008 - 1:01 pm 9. docweasel:It could go deeper than that, Roger. What if, just what if, Random House makes deals where Clinton “admirers” agree in advance to buy a certain lot of books, laundering contributions by buying a bunch of books, then giving them away or crushing them into pulp or whatever.
Then the Clintons can be said to have legitimately “earned” their advances and everybody is happy. No link to whoever buys a huge number of books, basically contributing monies to the Clintons with no paper trail.
Its plausible.
Apr 5, 2008 - 3:27 pm 10. tim maguire:I don’t know how many books the Clinton’s had to sell to make back the advance, but I do know that 15 million is enough to give 300 up and coming new talents a $50,000 advance.
Apr 5, 2008 - 3:55 pm 11. Charlie (Colorado):Doc, it’s not only plausible, it’s basically the exact scam that has been used in the past.
Tim, as a writer who is pleased when he get a hundred bucks, much less fifteen million, I sympathize: but if Clinton really earned $29 million in royalties, he made at least that much for the publisher. If we could reliably earn out $50,000 dollar advances, we’d get them.
Apr 5, 2008 - 5:30 pm