Former president Joe Biden to publish a White House memoir
The memoir, which does not have a publication date, will focus on his time in the White House. The Journal reported that Biden received an advance in the range of $10 million.
'Every president is expected to write a memoir,' Biden said earlier this month, at an event for the Society for Human Resource Management. 'I'm not going to criticize them, this is an observation — most take between three and six years to get it done.' He added that his publisher wanted the manuscript 'by March of this year.'
Biden's previous memoir, 'Promise Me, Dad,' exploring his family's struggle with his son Beau's battle with cancer, was published in 2017 and became a bestseller. According to the tax filings Biden released during his 2020 presidential campaign, he and his wife, Jill Biden, earned $10 million in income from the memoir, along with $3 million from her 2019 book, 'Where the Light Enters.'
In his review for The Washington Post, Tom Brokaw described 'Promise Me, Dad' as a 'poignant, instructive and deeply affecting account of a family's struggle against a vicious brain cancer, played out against the demands of his job as vice president and the temptations of another run for the presidency. It is also a touching account of the cruel realities of cancer, especially cancer that strikes your child.'
'After the Trump gold rush for the book industry of the last few years, the Biden era has, so far, been a bust,' Politico reported in 2023. Books on various aspects of Biden's life and career, including his relationship with Barack Obama and his first few years as president, had each, the article noted, sold only a few thousand copies — or less.
Donald Trump has not yet written a memoir about his time as president, though he has published photo books, including, in 2024, 'Save America.' Former president Barack Obama and former first lady Michelle Obama signed a joint book deal with Penguin Random House in 2017 reported to be worth $65 million. In 2001, when former president Bill Clinton sold his memoir rights for $10 million, it was believed to be the largest-ever amount for a nonfiction book.
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