The tickets for Michelle Obama’s upcoming book tour are selling fast, and at a price that is unheard of in the publishing world.
Obama will be making 12 stops to promote her memoir Becoming, and given the hype around the book will be appearing in arenas such as the Barclay’s Center in Brooklyn and TD Garden in Boston.
Tickets for these events are going for as low as $29.95, but for a VIP package fans will have to shell out $3,000 to meet and greet Michelle Obama while also getting a front row seat, their very own photo with the former first lady and a autographed copy of her book.
Those fans will have to hurry however, because despite the jaw-dropping price the VIP package tickets are sold out at almost every venue just hours after going on sale.
Live Nation, who is handling the tour, has already added two additional dates in Washington DC and Brooklyn, and there is a possibility that more dates could be added still, with the tour not set to kick off until November.
She’s back: Michelle Obama (above in June) will be touring the country in support of her memoir Becoming beginning in November, and tickets are almost sold out at every venue
This is just the latest bit of history Obama is making, having already shattered the record for the biggest contract ever for a debut book.
She and husband Barack Obama were paid $60 million for their post-White House memoirs after an intense bidding war that was ultimately won by Penguin Random House.
No book deal has ever come close to paying an author this much money, with the closest example being the the $150million James Patterson reportedly received from Hachette in 2009 as part of a 17-book deal.
That breaks down to a little less than $10million a book, as opposed to he $30million Barack and Michelle each made in their deal.
The amount also eclipses the $15million Bill Clinton was paid for his post-White House memoir My Life which was released in 2004, and the $10million deal score by George W. Bush for the 2010 release Decision Points.
And it is four times more than the reported $14million Hillary Clinton earned for her 2014 release Hard Choices about her time at the State Department.
Hillary received $8million over a decade prior on 2001 for her first memoir, Living History. She was a New York senator at that time and had to have the deal approved by the Senate Ethics Committee.
President Donald Trump meanwhile received just a $500,000 advance for The Art of the Deal, which he split with the ghost writer of the book.
That book has gone on however to earn him millions in royalties, having made its way back on the bestsellers list back in 2004 when he launched The Apprentice and ever since announced his candidacy for president in 2015.
‘We are absolutely thrilled to continue our publishing partnership with President and Mrs. Obama,’ the chief executive of Penguin Random House, Markus Dohle, said in a statement.
‘With their words and their leadership, they changed the world, and every day, with the books we publish at Penguin Random House, we strive to do the same.’
Dohle then added: ‘Now, we are very much looking forward to working together with President and Mrs. Obama to make each of their books global publishing events of unprecedented scope and significance.’
As part of the deal penguin will also donate a million books in the Obamas name, a move that might have taken down the price paid in the deal.