TRUMP v OBAMA
As the dust settles on one of the US’s most divisive – if not actually particularly close – presidential battles, the Stateside publishing industry is gearing up for another potential fight: which of the Big Five, if any, will secure Donald Trump’s memoir. If they want it.
The post-presidential memoir is rarely a big gamble for publishing houses, still earning the kind of eightdigit advances that nevertheless ensure they will commit to their biggest marketing push of the year.
Against the Biden-Trump backdrop, Penguin Random House were whipping up a PR storm for the title many retailers are hoping will save Christmas: Barack Obama’s A Promised Land. Its initial print run is over 3m and pre-orders have been strong on both sides of the Atlantic, prompting Waterstones MD James Daunt to predict it would sell as well as the last Harry Potter.
But the anticipation for a potential Trump title has been somewhat more muted, reports Rachel Deahl for US trade journal Publishers Weekly, ‘causing more agita than excitement’.
‘While it might be unheard of to turn down a title by a former American president, Donald Trump poses unique challenges as an author that could force him to go outside the confines of Manhattan to sell any prospective book.’
One big sticking point is money. Many of the publishers Rachel spoke to refuted a New York Post suggestion that the advance could be an eye-watering $100m, saying $30$40m was more realistic. But they also raised a figure likely to ‘loom large’, given Trump’s drive to overshadow his predecessor: the $65m the Obamas reportedly got from
PRH. Theirs was a multi-book deal, however, signed together and informed by the runaway global success of Michelle Obama’s Becoming.
It may be moot, however, as Rachel continued: ‘the biggest hurdle to a Trump book deal at a major house is the friction it could cause in an industry with a workforce and author base that leans decidedly left’. Not to mention antipathy from the other side. With some fifteen titles previously published under his name, Trump has a reputation for being difficult to work with and ‘demonstrated a deep disengagement with the publishing process – both in the creation of and promotion of titles’.
Marji Ross, publisher of conservative press Regnery, told Rachel, ‘even if there were takers for a Trump book at the New York houses, which have all released books deeply critical of the president, he should go elsewhere. “Trump would be better off working with people who like him and are on his side.”’
Which leaves one option, which many felt looked likely: ‘He could self-publish (potentially releasing a book under the umbrella of a new Trump TV-esque conservative media venture) or strike a hybrid deal with a smaller player.’
Then they just have to convince the booksellers...