Shannon McCormick hopes to raise $5,000 for his art book project, Presidential Losers: The Book.

As Barack Obama stays in office, former Governor Mitt Romney joins an illustrious group that includes President John Adams, Vice President Al Gore and Senator John McCain. This book will feature artistic portraits of all these men and more. We’ve embedded a video about the project above–what do you think?

Here’s more about the project: “Earlier this year, we assembled an amazing roster of 75 contemporary artists and cartoonists, and each submitted a portrait of one of the loosing contenders from each federal election going back to the defeat of incumbent President John Adams in 1800…We’re currently planning on a very sophisticated 100 page softcover book, complete with all the portraits along with quick bios of the losing candidates and our artists.”

Welcome to our Kickstarter Publishing Project of the Week, a feature exploring how authors and publishers are using the fundraising site to raise money for book projects. If you want to start your own project, check out How To Use Kickstarter to Fund Your Publishing Project.

Former Sarah Palin aide Frank Bailey has landed a deal with Simon & Schuster’s Howard Books. His memoir, Blind Allegiance to Sarah Palin, will be released on May 24th.

Bailey became close to former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin during her gubernatorial campaign; he remained in her inner circle  during John McCain‘s presidential race. He co-wrote the memoir along with author Ken Morris and Mudflats blogger Jeanne Devon. On her site, Devon revealed that the three writers spent two years on this project.

Bailey had this statement in the press release: “I write because I am convinced that Sarah’s priorities and personality are not only ill-suited to head a political party or occupy national office, but would lead to a disaster of, well, biblical proportions.”

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Actress Julianne Moore will play former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin in HBO’s adaptation of John Heilemann and Mark Halperin‘s book, Game Change: Obama and the Clintons, McCain and Palin, and the Race of a Lifetime.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Jay Roach will direct and Danny Strong will write the script. Here’s more from TVNewser: “HBO optioned Game Change last January. No word yet on who will play the other TV news personalities mentioned in the book.”

Anybody wish they picked Saturday Night Live veteran Tina Fey? Heilemann and Halperin interviewed more than 300 people to write Game Change (2010). The book had three parts: part one covered the Democratic primaries, part two looked at the Republican primaries, and part three examined the race between Barack Obama and John McCain.

Time Magazine reported that it has “confirmed by sources” that author and John McCain speechwriter Mark Salter wrote O: A Presidential Novel.

Salter has also written a number of nonfiction books with McCain (including Faith Of My Fathers and Worth the Fighting For).  Simon & Schuster had stoked speculation among journalists over the anonymously written novel about the Barack Obama White House–releasing hints, a web video, and excerpts from the forthcoming novel.

Time Magazine has more about the clues: “(Flashback: Page Six touted Salter.) Simon and Schuster topper Jonathan Karp was Salter’s editor on books he did with Senator McCain.-Salter has been holed up in Maine since leaving his job in the Senate. The descriptions that Karp has given of the author matched Salter.”

Former John McCain campaign adviser Nicole Wallace used the frustrations resulting from her work on the McCain-Palin campaign to write her debut novel, Eighteen Acres. The embedded video from Simon & Schuster’s Atria imprint shows a scene from the book launch party at SoHo House.

Wallace began writing her novel immediately after Barack Obama‘s win ended the McCain and Sarah Palin‘s campaign. The novel explores the ups and downs faced by the first female president and her two female staff members during a re-election battle.

Here’ s more from Publisher’s Weekly: “The book is ‘partly an emotional response to the election’ admitted Wallace, whose contentious relationship with Sarah Palin was spotlighted in Going Rogue. Yet it is not a retaliation (as fun as that sounds). Wallace instead toyed with the genre of political fiction as a medium for exploring the complexity or ‘indignities’ of woman’s role in politics. Drawing mainly from her six years as a senior aid with the George W. Bush administration, she offers a glimpse into the inner workings of the White House from an ambitious female’s perspective.”
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Politico reported today that President Barack Obama will write a cover story for Newsweek about the earthquake in Haiti.

National Review columnist and author Jonah Goldberg responded with a dismissive column: “some might wonder, given Newsweek’s fawning coverage of the man, whether this is the first time he’s written for Newsweek or whether this is just the first time he got a byline.” GalleyCat has always celebrated Obama’s writing credentials. The President’s memoir was a bestseller, and last year he urged This well-known author urged children to grow up to be writers in a speech.

What do you think? The Politico article also included a response from Newsweek editor Jon Meacham responding to critics: “We’ve published Ronald Reagan and John McCain, and we invited George W. Bush to write in our pages … The occasion for the Obama essay is an international tragedy with humanitarian and political implications.”

Most importantly, if you want to donate money to the recovery effort, The Rumpus has an amazing list of aid organizations.

With an odd gunpowder metaphor on her Facebook page, former Alaskan governor Sarah Palin criticized the AP for “erroneously reporting” on her memoir when the news organization broke an embargo and reported on a leaked copy of her memoir.

Here’s Palin’s response, with her trademark brand of Facebook writing: “As you probably have heard, the AP snagged a copy of my memoir, Going Rogue, before its Tuesday release. And as is expected, the AP and a number of subsequent media outlets are erroneously reporting the contents of the book. Keep your powder dry, read the book, and enjoy it! Lots of great stories about my family, Alaska, and the incredible honor it was to run alongside Senator John McCain. We can’t wait to hit the road and meet so many on the book tour! See you in Michigan first…”

The AP defended its story–which spoke of campaign tensions and Palin’s frustration with the media. Check it out: “AP, however, stands by its story. “‘We’ve read the book; we’ve read it carefully — and we stand by our reporting,’ Paul Colford, AP director of media relations, said Friday.”

Recently at the Washington Ideas Festival, former presidential Senator John McCain fielded some questions about his expectations and worries about Sarah Palin‘s upcoming memoir.

Since Palin’s “Going Rogue: An American Life” is named after a label placed on the former Alaskan governor by an angry McCain staffer, the memoir promises to have some pointed insights into her failed vice-presidential bid. Via an article by Politico‘s Michael Calderone, here is McCain’s diplomatic quote: “The part I’m looking forward to most is the part where it energized our campaign, and her selection put us ahead in the polls…The part I’m looking forward to the least thing is some of the disagreements that took place within the campaign.”

In addition, Calderone’s post mentioned an ongoing debate about the mainstream media’s liberal bias when reviewing political books: “NewsBusters asks today if the mainstream media will ignore Palin’s book like this year’s best-sellers from Glenn Beck, Michelle Malkin and Mark Levin (which sold over 1 million copies in 2009 without a NY Times or Washington Post review). I say no.”

One year after being exposed as an invented character supported by an elaborate Internet hoax, Martin Eisenstadt has resurfaced in a video supporting his forthcoming book–complete with Amazon Kindle cameos and cardboard cutouts.

In the heat of the 2008 Presidential election, two filmmakers created Eisenstadt as an imaginary political adviser, posing as a John McCain staffer and fooling reporters with exaggerated tales of Sarah Palin‘s problems. The NY Times unraveled the hoax here, but as the video reveals, a book attributed to this imaginary character will arrive in October–”I Am Martin Eisenstadt:
One Man’s (Wildly Inappropriate) Adventures with the Last Republicans.”

Here’s more from the publisher’s website: “[W]e heard that he was a fraud, a fake, and that Martin Eisenstadt didn’t exist. Maybe he doesn’t. But in a world where ‘news’ can spread like wildfire on the Internet and a hoax can tell you more about politics than the facts, Martin Eisenstadt–whose blog and think tank fooled the world–has something to tell us. With the savviness of Primary Colors and the playfulness of Forrest Gump, his book is a mix of political intrigue, campaign-trail escapades, and cyberspace detective work.”

24-year-old Meghan McCain, daughter of former Presidential candidate John McCain, has reportedly sold her book to Hyperion after an auction.

According to the NY Observer, several unnamed sources said the advance was in “the high six figures. “The deal was negotiated by Flip Brophy, who helms Sterling Lord Literistic and represents Meghan’s father.

Here’s more from the article: “While we haven’t quite nailed down what Ms. McCain’s book will be about–no one at Hyperion nor Ms. Brophy returned calls this afternoon–but if her recent columns for Tina Brown and Barry Diller’s Web site The Daily Beast are any indication, it will probably have something to do with the future of the Republican party, and how it must change to attract the votes of modern young people.” (Photo via Daily Beast)