Ulysses S Grant Memoirs Mark Twain. Mark twain developed a marketing plan that employed veterans to sell subscriptions and was able to deliver an initial royalty check of $200k to grants widow. The book offers interesting, but by no means comprehensive, details about both men's lives as background.
The main focus of this book, however, is grant's writing of his memoirs in the last months of his life while he was dying of throat cancer. After his presidency, grant had lost all his savings to a shady investment partner, leaving his family nearly destitute. Encouraged by his friend mark twain, grant began preparing his memoirs in 1884.
The need to write the memoirs quickly became more urgent when grant was diagnosed with inoperable throat cancer that worsened.
Mark twain paid grant to publish his memoirs. To sweeten the deal, twain offered grant a seventy percent royalty from the profits. After his presidency, grant had lost all his savings to a shady investment partner, leaving his family nearly destitute. True enough, grant’s memoirs were well worth reading.