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Clinton Foundation Donor Penguin Random House Announces Book Deal with Chelsea Clinton

Chelsea Clinton
Chelsea Clinton / AP
May 26, 2015

Penguin Random House, a Clinton Foundation donor, announced its book deal with Chelsea Clinton last week. The book is being published by Philomel, an imprint of Penguin Young Readers.

The publisher donated between $1,000 and $5,000, according to the Clinton Foundation website.

A Clinton Foundation spokesman told the Washington Free Beacon the donation was made in 2007, well before Chelsea's book advance was announced.

Penguin Random House has not disclosed how much Chelsea’s book advance is worth, but the Clintons have received some of the largest publishing advances in recent history.

Alfred A. Knopf, whose parent company, Knopf Doubleday, is now under the Penguin Random House umbrella, paid Bill Clinton an advance of $15 million for his 2004 memoir, My Life. At the time, it was the largest advance ever paid to an author. Hillary Clinton’s Hard Choices received a $14 million advance from its publisher, Simon & Schuster. They have since sold enough copies to cover half of the advance.

Penguin Random House and Penguin Young Readers did not respond to requests for comment on the advance or the donation.

Chelsea’s book, It’s Your World: Get Informed, Get Inspired & Get Going, is intended to educate young readers on themes such as climate change, gender equality, and non-communicable diseases.

"In It's Your World, I try to explain what I think are some of the biggest challenges facing our world today, particularly for young people," said Clinton. "I also explore some of the solutions to those challenges and share stories of inspiring kids and teenagers doing amazing work to help people and our planet have brighter and healthier futures. My hope is that the book will inspire readers to realize that they can start making a difference now, in their own way, for their family, their community, and our world."

The book will be published Sept. 15.

"We have a saying in my family—it's always better to get caught trying (rather than not try at all). I hope we can all get caught trying," Chelsea wrote in an open letter to her readers.

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Update 9:32 P.M.: A previous version of this post said that a Clinton campaign spokesman returned request for comment. The comment was from a Clinton Foundation spokesman.