THE SIGNING OF Hillary Clinton to an eight-million-dollar book deal a couple of weeks ago brought out an unusually forceful cadre of pundits and talk-show hosts. By the time they finished picking through it, several things were clear: the contract was either a brilliant investment or a profoundly foolish one; Hillary had either no scruples or she had extensive moral reserves; and the publishing industry had either finally lost its mind or finally come into its pop-cultural own. A swirl of questions about the book's content did little to sort things out. Editors at winning bidder Simon & Schuster pressed their lips together tightly. (So tightly, in fact, that Inside.com had to sheepishly offer the nugget that someone had spotted Nan Graham, Editor-in-Chief of Simon & Schuster imprint Scribner, boarding the D.C. shuttle with a copy of Katherine Graham's autobiography.) And so speculation flourished. Would Hillary discuss her legislative agenda? Her pre-Rose Garden days? Would silence once and for all be broken on the tumultuous second term? When we last checked, Hillary had reportedly answered that last question with a yes. It's a good thing, too; tales from an Illinois upbringing, galvanizing as they may be, do not an eight-million-dollar deal make.

But even if Hillary chooses to slide through this book using the same oily platitudes she showed in It Takes a Village, Simon & Schuster Editor-in-Chief Carolyn Reidy may have little reason to fret. After all, consider the recent sales history of the political tome. Newt Gingrich and Colin Powell both reportedly earned out their high-voltage advances; the Pope and Whoopi Goldberg didn't do as well. Both Powell and Gingrich were very much public figures when they wrote their books and still managed successful, if not always thought-provoking, titles. As an elected figure Hillary might blunt a few edges, but this doesn't have to reduce the bottom line.

That's not to say the elaborate profit-and-loss statements, both cultural and economic, that accompanied the decision didn't keep Reidy up nights; it takes plenty of nerve to throw around that kind of money and open yourself up to the Letterman barrage. The rest of us were unlikely to need any Valium, treating it as just another blip on the media-entertainment radar. But the deal did underscore two distinct publishing philosophies, separated, to this point, by a generation. Forty years ago (longtime Random House editor Jason Epstein and others are fond of reminding us), an editor decided to publish a book because it, or the author, captured their fancy. Marketing, accounting, and publicity mattered, but not nearly as much as editorial preference. This led to the discovery of some great writers who wouldn't have stood a chance in a more dollar-conscious environment, but it also led, as you might expect, to a reasonable share of self-important blather. Over the last decade the ethos of narcissism once so common has been displaced by an equally dubious operating principle: The corporate mindset. And not merely the inexact science of budgets, but the cultural trappings, the tics and the lingo, phrases like "The author is a great brand."

Dubya may have aspirations to the title, but it is Hillary, in this case, who is the Great Unifier. After all, what author -- public figure or otherwise -- gratifies a publisher's ego so fully and while also appeasing the accountants? As the deal went down, you could almost hear the sound of cred points being scored, the literary equivalent of I-can-take-you-down being chest-thumped in the glass-and-steel playgrounds of midtown. Yet for all its potential for self-satisfaction, a Hillary book presented a compelling bean-counter argument as well. For who else could assure the interest of the American public? For whom else does it matter so little what she says, as long as she's speaking? That she's managed to spark excitement before she even writes a word means the contract is the story. Still, there's no guarantee of a happy ending. Getting signed, after all, is the easy part. All it takes is an executive and a blank check. Crafting an artful narrative? Now that could take a village.