Laura Bush has sold a memoir of her eight years in the White House to Scribner, an imprint of Simon & Schuster, allowing the battered book industry the light relief of speculating on the size of the advance paid to a high-profile author.

Most publishers and agents concluded that Mrs Bush could expect a seven-figure sum, although there was disagreement over whether the advance would match the $8m Hillary Clinton received for writing Living History , or the similar sum they estimate Sarah Palin could earn for a memoir of her vice-presidential candidacy. Andrew Edgecliffe-Johnson, New York