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Obama a literary winner, too

In the wake of Barack Obama’s historic win last night, The Christian Science Monitor takes a look at the current sales status of Obama’s two books – his 1995 memoir Dreams From My Father and his 2006 political manifesto The Audacity of Hope. Not surprisingly, both titles are still going strong, sitting firmly in Amazon.com’s top 25 bestseller rankings.

But his real publishing success may be yet to come:

Now that Obama has been elected to the U.S. presidency, his books may also serve to introduce him to the rest of the world. In Britain, Canongate Publishing, which released both The Audacity of Hope and Dreams From My Father in the U.K. last year, has ordered an extra 120,000 copies of the books. More than 300,000 copies had already been printed for pre-Christmas sales, but Canongate’s chief executive Jamie Byng says he now expects sales of at least half a million by the end of the year, with a likely 250,000 next year.

“Interest in Barack has reached fever pitch,” says Byng.

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