UNITED STATES • Shortly after President Barack Obama left office in 2017, in the aftermath of a contentious election that cost his party the presidency, he sat down with a yellow notepad and began writing an account of his time in the White House. Nearly four years later, Mr Obama is preparing to release his book in the wake of another volatile and polarising presidential race.
His memoir, A Promised Land, arrives at a moment of deep political, cultural and social unrest - tensions that have been heightened by a global pandemic and an economic crisis. It is a challenging environment, to say the least, in which to release a book, even one of the most highly anticipated of the decade.
Bookstores have limited their foot traffic to comply with public health measures and many customers are still wary of in-person shopping. At the same time, supply chains are under intense strain as capacity issues at printing presses have delayed dozens of books this autumn.
But in spite of such setbacks, A Promised Land is shaping up to be one of the top-selling political memoirs of all time and a potential lifeline for booksellers whose sales have plummeted during the pandemic. Crown is printing 3.4 million copies of the book for the US and Canadian market and another 2.5 million for international readers. The book, which runs to 768 pages, is being released simultaneously around the world and will be available in 19 languages, including Spanish, Portuguese, Finnish, Romanian and Chinese (translations into six other languages are still under way).
Demand among American customers is so high that Penguin Random House, Crown's parent company, has printed 1.5 million copies in Germany to bring over on cargo ships. It still may not be enough to meet demand.
Barnes & Noble is stocking about half a million copies of the book, but the chain expects to sell even more than that, based on the pre-orders for A Promised Land and the strong sales of Michelle Obama's memoir, Becoming, published two years ago.
"We are taking as many as Penguin Random House will give us," said Mr James Daunt, chief executive officer of Barnes & Noble.
"If there was an unlimited supply, we would take more. I think we will end up selling an enormous number."
Big-box stores are also placing large orders. ReaderLink, which supplies books to major chains such as Target, Walmart and Costco, expects to receive 890,000 copies by the end of the month, its chief executive officer, Mr Dennis E. Abboud, said.
For struggling independent stores, Mr Obama's book - with a US$45 (S$60.50) list price - could prove crucial in recovering some of the losses suffered during the shutdown. Kramers, a bookstore in Washington, D.C., is opening its doors for a midnight release on Tuesday, the sort of fanfare more typical for a new Harry Potter book than a political memoir.
Politics and Prose, another D.C.-area independent bookstore, has placed a substantial order, for more than 2,000 copies. Mr Bradley Graham, the store's co-owner, said the book could have a ripple effect as shoppers who flock to buy big bestsellers often pick up other titles as well.
"It should make a significant difference in helping to boost sales at a time that we desperately need it," Mr Graham said.
Even before its release, A Promised Land was exerting a strong gravitational pull on the industry. The Booker Prize decided to move its award ceremony, scheduled for Tuesday, to Thursday to avoid overlapping with the publication.
Mr Obama will make an appearance at the Booker Prize online ceremony, alongside novelists Kazuo Ishiguro, Margaret Atwood and Bernardine Evaristo, where he will talk about what he has taken from reading past Booker-winning novels.
A representative for Mr Obama said the timing of the release was dictated by his writing schedule, which continued into this summer, when the election cycle was already in full swing.
"President Obama was completely focused this autumn on helping elect Mr Joe Biden, so there was never a thought given to having it come out in the lead-up to the election," said Ms Katie Hill, communications director for Mr Obama.
Of course, the biggest obstacle to any plan this year is the coronavirus. Mr Obama is not holding any in-person events, except for select interviews. Instead, he will rely on reaching readers through his large social media following - he has more than 125 million Twitter followers and about 90 million followers on Facebook and Instagram combined - and interviews with traditional outlets, as well as on podcasts and youth-focused media outlets. He may also hold some live virtual events, Ms Hill said.
Initially, Mr Obama planned to cover his eight years as president in a single volume, but it became clear as he was writing that such a book would have been too vast and unwieldy.
A Promised Land covers Mr Obama's youth and his political awakening and ends with him meeting the Navy Seal team involved in the raid that killed Al-Qaeda terrorist Osama bin Laden.
NYTIMES
