Obama's book royalties

These include editions translated into Portuguese and selling like hotcakes (or water as we say around here) in Brazil, titled "A audácia da esperança" and "A origem dos meus sonhos". Interestingly enough, the second title Obama published in the US was the first to be published in Brazil. I would have thought that his search for his African roots and mixed-race identity would have had much more resonance in this mixed-race, multicultural country.

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Three Times a Millionaire: Obama Trounces McCain in Book Royalties
By Fred Lucas
CNSNews.com Staff Writer
June 13, 2008

(CNSNews.com) - Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama made $3.2 million from book royalties last year, according to the Illinois senator's financial disclosure report released Friday.

That dwarfed the book royalties of his Republican opponent Sen. John McCain of Arizona, who earned about $175,000 in combined book royalties over the last year.

The reports, which every member of Congress must file under the law, were made available to the public Friday.

An attachment to Obama's form said the Senate Ethics Committee gave him permission in January 2005 to receive a $1.9 million advance from Random House for writing two non-fiction books and one children's book. The report said $200,000 would be donated to charity.

Royalties for the two non-fiction books -"The Audacity of Hope" and "Dreams of My Father" -- are 15 percent of the prices for hardcover sales, 7.5 percent for paperback and 8 percent for the first 150,000 mass market paperback book sales, according to the report.

Royalties for the children's book are 5 percent of the hardcover book sales, 3 percent of the paperback book sales and 10 percent of the amount received by the publisher, according to the financial report.

Last year, Warner Books published McCain's book, "Hard Call", from which McCain earned $91,250. Meanwhile, four other books published in previous years earned McCain a total of $83,705 in 2007. McCain's previous titles, "Faith of My Fathers," "Worth Fighting For," "Why Courage Matters" and "Character and Destiny," were published by Random House.

http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewPolitics.asp?Page=/Politics/archive/200806/POL20080613b.html