New Obama book coming this fall

Barack: The Book will hit stores on Sept. 9, just as the fall campaign is heating up.

"Change We Can Believe In: Barack Obama's Plan to Renew America's Promise” includes a campaign photo album from the road, a collection of seven of the hit speeches by Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), and new essays outlining his policy proposals.

Since everything Obama is selling well these days, that means the senator's picture and policies will be in the front of most bookstores in America throughout the heart of the general-election campaign.

The secret project—both a collectible, and an answer to questions about his substance—was launched just a month ago, and got to the printer with no leaks.

Three Rivers Press—a paperback imprint of Crown Publishing, which published Obama's two previous bestsellers—is announcing the book Monday, and plans a monster first printing of 300,000 copies.

The digital e-book will go on sale a day early at the same price as the trade paperback — $13.95. The cover image is an Associated Press photo of Obama speaking, over an impressionistic version of his rising-sun campaign logo that forms the background of the cover.

"Includes 7 Key Speeches from the 2008 Campaign," the cover says. "With a Foreword By BARACK OBAMA."

The unique terms were worked out by Washington superlawer Robert B. Barnett of Williams & Connolly. Profits from the book will go to a yet-to-be-determined charity, with no proceeds being retained by Obama or his campaign.

The book promises to be the biggest campaign publishing success in 16 years, following on the Clinton-Gore “Putting People First: How We Can All Change America” and H. Ross Perot’s “United We Stand,” both big bestsellers during the 1992 campaign.

Obama wrote the several-page foreword. Ten or 12 campaign staffers wrote the policy section, which includes: “How to Fix Our Ailing Economy,” “How to Strengthen the Middle Class,” “How to Make Health Care Affordable for All,” “How to Achieve Energy Independence” and “How to Keep America Safe in a Dangerous World.”

The speech section includes his declaration of candidacy in Springfield, Ill. in February 2007; his victory remarks after the Iowa caucuses on Jan. 3 ("You know, they said this day would never come"); his speech on race in America, "A More Perfect Union," in Philadelphia in March; his Father's Day speech in Chicago; his "Renewing American Competitiveness" remarks in June; and his address to the people of Berlin two weeks ago, "A World That Stands as One."

Obama's two previous books have been huge best-sellers: “Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance,” published in 1995 and re-released in 2004; and “The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream,” which came out in the fall of 2006.

Under a separate deal, the senator is to write two more books for Crown, including a children’s book with his wife, Michelle, and their two young daughters. Those books were part of a $1.9-million, three-book deal announced in December 2004.

The new book's subtitle, "Barack Obama's Plan to Renew America's Promise," carries an echo of the title of George W. Bush's campaign policy book in 2000, "Renewing America's Purpose."

By coincidence, Obama's new book comes out the day after another Washington blockbuster — Bob Woodward's latest, with the subtitle, "Bush at War, Part IV." The title is a closely held secret.