Barack, Michelle Obama sign $60m deal

Barack and Michelle Obama have signed a deal to publish their memoirs with New York-based Penguin Random House, in a coveted contract reportedly worth tens of millions of dollars.

America’s first African American president is already the author of two memoirs and a children’s book.

He has frequently declared himself to have a “writer’s sensibility” and has said he does not want to write a conventional blow-by-blow account of his time in the White House.

Michelle Obama’s memoir is likely to be just as eagerly anticipated.

A descendant of slaves, she became the first African American first lady and garnered high approval ratings — to the point where she was arguably one of the country’s most respected and popular women.

Penguin Random House said in a statement it has “acquired world publication rights for two books, to be written by president and Mrs Obama respectively.”

The terms of the deal were not disclosed, but bidding for the high-profile double book deal topped $60 million, a record sum for US presidential memoirs, according to the Financial Times.