Newsflash on George Bush

I know, I'm not happy about that post title either. Yuck.

But it only gets worse.

There was news today that former president George W. Bush sold a book to Random House:

"I want people to understand the environment in which I was making decisions. I want people to get a sense of how decisions were made and I want people to understand the options that were placed before me," Bush said during a brief telephone interview Wednesday with The Associated Press from his office in Dallas.

Bush's book, tentatively (not decisively) called "Decision Points," is scheduled for a 2010 release by Crown, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group.

Oof. Ugh. Blargh. Ack. Etc.

But then there's an update on the Daily Beast that includes some specifics: "A well-placed source in the publishing industry says George W. Bush’s book deal is valued at about $7 million. " (Thanks to MobyLives for the link - where Dennis Johnson also notes, the absurdity of this advance considering "it’s coming from a company, Random House imprint Crown, that has been consolidating, laying off people, and freezing and/or ending benefits, for months").

Isn't this when some of us think publishing is for the birds and want to pick up and leave books forever?