Most presidential memoirs are written by ghostwriters with some shaping and input from the man of the previous hour. This puts them a step above campaign books which are entirely written by ghostwriters and probably never even seen by the candidate. We’re a long way off from the day of Ulysses S. Grant, dying and rushing to finish his memoirs, sitting on his porch in the cold wrapped in a blanket, so that his family would be provided for.

But these days publishers tend to offer massive ‘advances’ that they often never expect to recoup to politicians. I’ve written about that before, but the reported $10 million advance for Biden’s memoir is especially ridiculous.

Former President Joe Biden has sold his presidential memoir to the Hachette Book Group for an advance in the range of $10 million, according to people familiar with the matter. Biden, who is 82, said at an event earlier this month that he was “working my tail off” to write a memoir, and indicated that he would focus on the four years he served as president.

Is there any actual interest in such a memoir? Doubtfully. There wasn’t much interest in Biden when he was president. Never mind interest in him after much of the party blames him for tanking the presidential election.

And considering his inability to speak or remember basic events,. is he remotely capable of writing a memoir? Obviously not. We already know how the ‘writing’ works. A ghostwriter talks to Biden who rambles on for 20 hours. The writer excises any of the obviously untrue and problematic material and then tries to shape it into something faintly literary. If Biden is still alive and capable of some basic appearances when the memoir comes out (far from certain) the memoir will splash gently into the back end of Barnes and Noble before drifting off to the remainder section.

There’s no call for spending $10 million on a book few will buy. But here’s one twist. Hachette is not an American company. It’s a French company.