A book deal for the memoirs of former US president Barack Obama is expected to set a record, with a price tag as high as $US20 million ($27 million).

The US trade publication The Hollywood Reporter has tipped Obama's recollections of his eight years in office will do brisk business once bidding opens.

The most previously paid for a presidential memoir is the $US15 million paid to Bill Clinton for his 2002 memoir My Life. (It sold 2.2 million copies.)

Clinton's windfall was also, at the time, the largest book advance in publishing history.