Obama’s emergence sparks sales of his book

What a difference a few minutes on the national political stage can make.

Witness the mercurial rise of Barack Obama, who before the Democratic National Convention was a little-known state senator from Illinois trying to win a U.S. Senate seat. Now he is a certified star, and it hasn’t done bad things for his long-out-of-print book either.

Nine years ago, Obama’s memoir, “Dreams From My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance,” was published to good reviews and lackluster sales. The best estimate his publisher and agent can come up with is that it sold around 15,000 copies.

But after his rousing keynote address at the convention last month, the country is smitten with Obama-mania, and the Crown Publishing Group is racing to ship copies of the book to stores around the country. The first reprinting of nearly 50,000 books has been shipped, and Crown is trying to determine how many more it may need for a second printing, which will contain a copy of his convention speech.

“What’s really gratifying is that as the months have passed, we’ve seen him become more and more visible, with booksellers’ enthusiasm rising and reaching a fever pitch after the speech,” said Rachel Klayman, a senior editor at Crown.