Why Bill’s Getting Big Bucks for His Story

In the richest nonfiction deal in history, Alfred A. Knopf will reportedly pay more than $10 million for former President Clinton’s memoir. The book, slated for publication in 2003, will have to sell more than 1 million copies to cover the record advance (assuming Knopf garners several million in foreign translation and other rights deals). Since few presidential memoirs turn into monumental bestsellers, the size of the advance stunned even publishing insiders. What explains the record price tag?

As the most complex occupant of the Oval Office since Richard Nixon, the publishing world sees much potential in the former president’s autobiography. After all, the dozens of books published about Clinton while he was still in office--including several bestselling entries by his closest advisors--confirm his star power. Clinton, part Shakespearean tragic hero, part movie idol, is the only modern-day president who could have choreographed the “hero’s welcome” he received at his office opening last week in Harlem.

Beyond his popularity, presidential books are currently in vogue; David McCullough’s “John Adams” is No. 1 on both the Los Angeles Times and the New York Times bestseller lists. Publishers are eminently aware of Clinton’s enduring marquee value.

Richard Nixon once declared that “the worst thing a politician can be is dull. At least I’m interesting.” In pondering the worth of Clinton’s memoir, comparisons to America’s 37th president are inevitable. Like Nixon, Clinton revealed himself to be a flawed leader, playing equally well the roles of statesman and rogue. Throughout his turbulent career, Clinton confounded everyone, including his inner circle, with his near-mythical instinct for surviving missteps that should have meant his political demise.

How he kept the vessel afloat in the face of so many scandals can make for an absorbing tale, but only if he is willing to make his iniquities--including his infidelities, his impeachment and his controversial pardons--a prominent part of his memoir.

Many op-ed editors and television pundits speculated on how candid Clinton will be in telling his story. Less subtle journalists spoke of Monica Lewinsky and the impeachment, and made predictions on exactly how many pages the former president would devote to each.

A key to the book’s success would seem to be whether Clinton addresses these topics beyond the lurid details with which we are already so familiar. Only Clinton can tell us what motivated his seemingly self-destructive actions, and what it felt like to live through the impeachment. Also of interest would be his secrets on how he outmaneuvered political opponents and Beltway critics at every turn. That alone could be worth the price of the book.

History, however, is not on Clinton’s side.

Books by political figures that achieve both critical and commercial success are rare indeed. Sen. John F. Kennedy won the Pulitzer Prize in biography for “Profiles in Courage” in 1957, and Jimmy Carter has had scattered successes, including his latest, “An Hour Before Daylight,” which hit the bestseller lists. But few political works share similar receptions.

The fact is that presidents do not write memoirs, ex-presidents do. The timing of this reality foils many a presidential book’s success. By the time Ronald Reagan published his autobiography, “An American Life,” America was midway through a Bush administration and not interested in turning back the clock, despite the fact that he was the nation’s most popular president since Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Nixon did better. Despite poor reviews, he earned his seven-figure advance when his 1978 memoir, “RN,” hit bestseller lists. But most of his nine other works, predominantly foreign policy edicts, did only modestly well. Nixon’s writings had other successes though: While never fully expunging the stain of Watergate from America’s psyche, Nixon knew that the road to redemption was via the role of geopolitical elder statesman. Works like “Real Peace” and “In the Arena” helped foster that image.

Clinton may have similar legacy-mending in mind with his book, as his choice of publishers suggests. Knopf is one of the industry’s most acclaimed houses (Walter Cronkite honored his three-decade-old commitment to publish his memoir there).

Clinton may also follow in the footsteps of another prominent leader he admired, but whose presidency was also besieged with scandals, Ulysses S. Grant. Grant’s autobiography, “Personal Memoirs,” written with the encouragement of his friend and publisher Mark Twain, was lauded as a candid and engrossing look inside the mind of a richly textured leader. The book was likely the last presidential autobiography written without a ghostwriter.

Clinton, who kept Grant’s two-volume memoir in the Oval Office, will reportedly follow the Grant model by writing the book himself, but under the watchful eye of an experienced editor. Grant, who completed his book huddled in blankets four days before losing his excruciating fight to throat cancer in 1885, produced an exceptional account, and was rewarded for it: He and his family ultimately earned a sorely needed $500,000 for his story (about $9.3 million in today’s dollars).

Those who questioned Clinton’s decision to eschew a ghostwriter and tackle the project himself underestimated the potential contribution of his editor. A talented editor serves as a beacon that keeps the ship on course. Robert Gottlieb, the former editor of the New Yorker whose book portfolio includes Nobel laureate Toni Morrison, historian Robert Caro and the Pulitzer Prize-winning autobiography of Katharine Graham (“Personal History”), will edit the book.

One more wrinkle in this literary saga emanates from an unlikely source: Hillary Rodham Clinton also has a book expected in 2003 (to be published by Simon & Schuster). Since first ladies are usually not as fettered as former presidents, it was initially assumed that she would produce the more revealing autobiography. She demonstrated a remarkable resiliency in enduring such public ignominy. How and why she stood so resolutely by her husband would be compelling material. But she now has her own political career to consider, which could include a White House bid of her own in 2004. Yet one essential item lacking from Clinton’s resume may dash hopes of a truly important presidential autobiography. A president’s legacy is often derived from a single defining ideological victory: With his Civil Rights Act, Lyndon Johnson helped tear down a racial wall. With his historic visit to China, Nixon toppled a wall of his own. It may not be enough that Clinton’s popularity propelled him to become only the 12th U.S. president to serve two terms, or that he delivered on the economic mandate that got him elected, presiding over eight years of uninterrupted prosperity.

Absent an ideological wall of his own, Clinton’s troubles may define his presidency more than his accomplishments. But don’t count him out yet. If Clinton, the book tour, is anything like Clinton the campaign trail, his publisher may just have the last laugh.

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Jeffrey Krames is vice president and publisher of McGraw-Hill’s Trade Division and the editor of the bestselling biography of former presidential candidate Ross Perot.