Have been the president of the world’s leading power can be very fruitful. However, if you add to this a charismatic and intelligent person like Barack Obama, you can be sure to be very comfortable financially. Finally, add to this lucrative mix, a pinch of a first lady talented as her husband, and you have the perfect recipe for a media and economic success. Yet, nowadays, it is the success of their memoirs and what it brings to them that makes the headlines of all newspapers.
It is not with Barack Obama’s salary that the Obama couple built its wealth. As president of the United States and like all his predecessors, he earned $400,000 a year. Nowadays, his salary as a former head of state still has something to dream about. Surely, he is earning $200,000 a year, so a little over $15,000 a month. However, to earn the millions that the couple benefits from today, they relied on their worldwide popularity and business acumen.
Michelle Obama was the first to make a huge marketing move with her book “Becoming“. Last year, she travelled in all the United States but mostly the world to promote her volume. Promotions for which some people paid thousands of dollars to attend. The more you paid, the more you got attention from the former first lady. If you were lucky, you had the honour to leave the conference with a photo in her company and a book signed.
Was the promotion really well made or was a book of high quality? In any case, Michelle Obama got it right. In addition to breaking sales records, “Becoming” is the bestselling memory book of all time with 14 million copies.
“I provide an honest accounting of my presidency, the forces we grapple with as a nation, and how we can heal our divisions and make democracy work for everybody”, Barack Obama on tweeter following the announcement of the publication of his book.
As if that were not enough, Barack Obama also published his memory book on November 17, 2020, 2 years after his wife. It is called “A Promised Land“, and it is the first of a planned two-volume series. This edition is guaranteed to be such a great success and even more dazzling. In one week, 3,5 million copies have already been produced for the first orders.
If the Obama couple were part of the Wall Street stock exchange, it would be the perfect time to buy your shares! Despite everything, some had a flair and felt a good deal before everyone else. This is the publishing house “Penguin Random House” which in 2017 has signed a contract with the Obama couple that surprised everyone. An advance of $65 million for the memoirs of “mister president” and the “first lady”. After the success of “becoming”, they have nothing to be disappointed. However, will Barack do as well or better than his wife? The answer in a few weeks.
But the duo doesn’t stop there. Indeed, Barack Obama, in addition to receiving his presidential pension, would charge 300,000 dollars for his speeches in the conferences. Moreover, A Netflix series, called “becoming” adapted from Michelle Obama’s book is available. A documentary that would have brought about $50 million to the couple. Before they entered the White House, their fortune was estimated between 2.3 and 7 million dollars; nowadays, it could reach 135 million.
Certainly, you would ask, what are they doing with all that money? They mainly bought houses. Firstly, a magnificent property in their Chicago fief but also a house in Washington for the consequent 8 million dollars. As any wealthy person, the Obama couple also offers themselves second homes or holidays in idyllic places. Especially in Hawaii, the birthplace of Barack Obama, in $3,000-a-night hotels.
For sure, they gave a marketing lesson to all entrepreneurs because everything touched by the couple turns into gold. Gold spent on expensive pleasures, and that’s what is usually reproached to Barack Obama. Indeed, Some accuse him of having forgotten his main struggles for the fight against racism in the United States and against social inequalities. Nevertheless, these same people quickly forgot that the duo would have given 1.1 million dollars to associations between 2005 and 2015.
