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Opinion: Sarah Palin’s book deal a done deal with HarperCollins

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Word just in by snow machine that Alaska’s Republican Governor and most famous hockey mom Sarah Palin has signed a book deal with HarperCollins.

She’ll have a collaborator but wants to write much of it herself for publication a year from now.

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The advance figure was not revealed, but safe to say given her celebrityhood and controversy and loyal advocates and venom-filled non-advocates, it’s significant. Certainly sufficient to buy a few winters’ worth of snow machine gas and oil.

Palin was represented in the book deal by high-powered DC attorney Robert Barnett, who said HarperCollins was ‘first and fervent’ in its pursuit of Palin’s story. Last winter Palin laughed off a reported $11 million book deal as, well, ‘laughable.’

Book advances are usually paid half on signing and half on acceptance of the finished manuscript with the agent usually receiving at least 15% off the top. Palin’s book income would eventually be reported as part of her required state financial disclosures.

‘There have been so many things written and said through mainstream media that have not been accurate,’ Palin told Sean Cockerham of the Anchorage Daily News today, ‘and it will be nice through an unfiltered forum to get to speak truthfully about who we are and what we stand for and what Alaska is all about.’

Whatever she could possibly be talking about is a complete mystery.

Her daughter really did have the governor’s baby and then miraculously get pregnant again herself while her mother was leading bookburning parties wearing $150,000 dresses while being unable to read a single newspaper and her husband was having a campaign affair with a videographer.

Oh, no, wait. That was one of the unsuccessful Democratic candidates whose wife is selling her book these days.

HarperCollins’ chief, Brian Murray, said, ‘Gov. Palin is one of the most charismatic, inspiring and controversial figures to appear on the national political stage for many years.

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‘She has a fascinating story to tell, and we look forward to publishing what surely will be a captivating book.’ HarperCollins, BTW, is owned by Rupert Murdoch. So which TV network named Fox do you think gets first crack at next year’s interviews?

Palin said she’s eager to put her journalism education and background to work and has been keeping personal journals, especially in the past year.

‘I just really look forward to being able to relate to people through this book, those who are anxious to hear stories about people who are facing similar challenges perhaps,’ Palin told the newspaper.

‘That’s balancing work and parenting -- in my case work does mean running a state, and family involves a large and fun and colorful ordinary family that really has been thrust into maybe some extraordinary circumstances.’

And having her own book version out wouldn’t hurt any political chances of Palin’s 2010 state re-election campaign and, who knows, maybe some kind of national effort after that.

-- Andrew Malcolm

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Photo credits: Associated Press; Stephanie’s Mom (Palin poses with a little girl named Stephanie who approached her in an Anchorage grocery recently).

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