Former President Barack Obama Barack Hussein ObamaThe Memo: Trump's strengths complicate election picture Obama shares phone number to find out how Americans are planning to vote Democrats' troubling adventure in a 'Wonderland' without 'rule of law' MORE’s post-White House memoir will likely not be published this year, increasing the chances that the book will be released in the middle of the 2020 presidential campaign.

Publisher Penguin Random House has started reaching out to foreign partners and others about the book’s status, according to the Associated Press. The AP reported that Obama has been writing the book himself, writing out a first draft on legal pads, the same method he employed for several White House speeches and his last memoir, “Dreams from My Father,” which was a best-seller.

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Penguin Random House did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Hill.

The former president and his wife, former first lady Michelle Obama Michelle LeVaughn Robinson ObamaBlack stars reimagine 'Friends' to get out the vote Obama shares phone number to find out how Americans are planning to vote Michelle Obama: 'Don't listen to people who will say that somehow voting is rigged' MORE, first signed profitable deals with the publisher in 2017. Michelle Obama’s memoir “Becoming” was released last year and quickly became one of the most popular political memoirs ever, selling over 10 million copies.

A person with knowledge of the matter told the AP that Penguin Random House did not update its partners on a launch date.

A 2020 launch could thrust the former president, still one of the most revered figures in the Democratic Party, back into the political spotlight just as the party is trying to find its next leader.

Beyond a number of campaigns in the 2018 midterm cycle, Obama has taken pains since he departed the White House to stay out of the limelight as the party continues to find itself in the throes of a war between centrists and progressives, an internal division that was split wide open in the 2016 election.

The former president has thus far declined to endorse any presidential contender, including his former vice president Joe Biden Joe BidenBiden on Trump's refusal to commit to peaceful transfer of power: 'What country are we in?' Democratic groups using Bloomberg money to launch M in Spanish language ads in Florida Harris faces pivotal moment with Supreme Court battle MORE.