Yes, that's seven figures (worth of money!) for one book on five Obamas. New York Times writer Jodi Kantor has just inked a deal that will make her the richest writer about the Obamas who isn't named "Barack Obama".

Demonstrably hardcore Gawker alum Sheila McClear has sold her book about life in the bygone Times Square peep shows, Last of the Live Nude Girls, to Soft Skull Press. Everyone is required to buy two copies. [Galleycat] UPDATE:

Sarah Palin received at least $1.25 million to write her chapter book, Goin' Rogue, Also: An American Tail. If that is it, it is much less than Tina Fey got, which is amusing.

This "The Internet" thing is nice, but we often think: What it really needs is a self-proclaimed arbiter of its cultural relevance to undertake the preposterously impossible ambitious task of explaining the entire internet. In a book. Hello, Virginia Heffernan!

Ice-cold saintly hero pilot Chesley Sullenberger didn't blink after the engines on his plane failed, forcing him into a death-defying river landing. The passengers, on the other hand, were totally freaked the fuck out. Book excerpt, ho!

Here's an amazing blast from the past we can all get behind, and throw up. Last year we showed you a crazy German site comparing the advertised photos of food to the nasty reality. They're back, with a book deal!

The "Look at This Fucking Hipster" book will be full of staged photos of self-identified hipsters, for legal purposes. But author Joe Mande is also sending out this form email to anyone who submits their own photo:

Sloane Crosley got a book deal by being the most popular book publicist in New York. Now, Sloane Crosley's book publicist has gotten a book deal herself. Taste the meta! There are only five other ways to get published now.

Hipster-mocking blog Look at This Fucking Hipster got a book deal, but big problem: you try getting clearance from all those clowns to publish their photos. The sad reality: the LATFH book will be full of self-identified hipster posers!

You have to admire the online chutzpah of HarperCollins and Nick Douglas. Having sourced the contents of Twitter Wit entirely for free from the microblogging service, the publisher is now attempting to crowdsource its marketing campaign. And so boldly!

Now-famous recently freed Current TV journalist Laura Ling and her already-famous-before sister Lisa Ling—who you know from your television set—have reportedly landed a book deal! Like we said, being kidnapped is the career move of a lifetime.

Publishers release "advance copies" for the Literary Elite to have before the masses/Oprah ruins them for you. Being spotted with one sometimes merits "status"...that we're about to ruin. Today's selection is TwitterWit, The Big Book of Collected Tweets!

Oh good! Carrie Prejean, the brave stateswoman who stood up nobly at a Miss USA pageant and said that gay people shouldn't have equal rights, has landed a book deal with prestigious imprint Regnery. Andrew Breitbart is so excited!

• News of Walter Cronkite's death on Friday evening didn't generate a Michael Jackson-like reaction, but the hour-long CBS News special honoring him on Sunday proved a ratings winner. In related news, the network will continue airing Cronkite's voice-over introducing the CBS Evening News. [NYT, NYT]
• Is Janice Min leaving Us Weekly? That's the rumor, at least. [P6]
• Fashion magazines are looking a little thin this fall, not surprisingly. [MW]
• Padma Lakshmi is in talks with NBC to star in a sitcom. [Variety]
• More changes are afoot at Interview: Evan Schindler is the troubled mag's new president. And Stephen Mooallem has been named editor-in-chief. [NYT]
• As expected, the new Harry Potter movie mopped up at the box office this weekend with $79.5 million in ticket sales. The big loser? Brüno, which fell to fourth place as sales plummeted 73 percent. [EW, Variety]

Hey, look! Being a Gawker Intern pays off. One of our most famous non-paid workers, James Frey, is shopping a young adult series that just got preemptively optioned by DreamWorks. Estimates say the deal was in the high six figures.

Look At This Fucking Hipster, a blog about looking at hipsters, and then making fun of them, has scored a book deal. Plus the formerly anonymous, self-loathing author has been revealed!

Sure, people have made books out of tweet collections and websites about emails and fatty foods, but has anyone parlayed a lone Facebook update into old-media glory? This might actually happen, insanely enough.

Dick Cheney, the least likable humanoid creature both on the planet and deep below its surface, where he came from, wants to write a book. He would like $2 million for it, thank you. It's worth it, though! His last book was totally awesome!

Not only was beloved former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich denied his opportunity to be a celebrity wishing to get out of here, now he won't even get his million dollars from his book deal.

A New York Times reporter is never really broke until after he's spent all the money he got to write a book about how he went broke. [NYT]