With his sustained blitz of television appearances and speeches, former Vice President Dick Cheney has established himself as perhaps the leading Republican voice against President Obama.

IBNA: According to New york Times, not a bad time, then, to be in the market for a multimillion-dollar book contract.

Mr. Cheney is actively shopping a memoir about his life in politics and service in four presidential administrations, a work that would add to what is already an unusually dense collection of post-Bush-presidency memoirs that will offer a collective rebuttal to the many harshly critical works released while the writers were in office and beyond.

Already working hard to meet publishers’ deadlines is an informal writers’ workshop of historic proportions: President George W. Bush; Laura Bush, the former first lady; former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice; former Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr.; former Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld; and Karl Rove, the former presidential political mastermind.

Members of the Bush group are in regular contact as they seek to jog their memories, compare notes and trade stylistic tips in their new lives as authors, according to friends and current and former aides.

The coming crush of books reflects what former Bush officials describe as a desire to produce their own drafts of history after gritting their teeth for so long over the works of the journalists and disgruntled colleagues who penned the first, second and third drafts before them.

Adding to the eagerness is that Mr. Bush and his team had no vocal defender in the presidential campaign last year, when even the Republican nominee, Senator John McCain of Arizona, often attacked their stewardship.

“This is a group that kept their powder dry for a long time,” said Ed Gillespie, the former counselor to Mr. Bush, who stays in close contact with his colleagues. “People will get a firsthand account of the real nature of the decisions and the choices this administration had to make, and maybe there are some things people weren’t free to say at the time that they can say now that can shed some light on some things.”

Then again, the money isn’t bad, either.

A person familiar with discussions Mr. Cheney has had with publishers said he was seeking more than $2 million for his advance. That sum may prove hard to get in this economic climate, especially given his generally low approval ratings, which publishers view as a potential — but not certain — harbinger for sales.

While Mr. Bush got an advance estimated to be well into the millions for a look into 12 of his most important decisions, his payout is not believed to be as large as that of former President Bill Clinton for his memoirs, which drew a $15 million advance.

Mr. Rumsfeld was not paid an advance by his publisher, Sentinel, of Penguin Group USA, and has committed to donating his share of any proceeds to his nonprofit foundation. (Mr. Bush, Mr. Clinton, Mr. Cheney, Mr. Rumsfeld, and Mr. Obama, for that matter, were represented in their contract talks by the Washington lawyer Robert B. Barnett.)

Mr. Cheney’s friends say he does not need the money and has made clear in his talks that he is eager to give a full accounting of his life in politics that will debunk his many critics.

According to a person familiar with a meeting that Mr. Cheney had with a publisher, the former vice president is proposing a memoir that would function not only as the story of his role in four Republican administrations but also as a history of “the entire Republican ascendancy going back to Nixon.” This person did not want to be named because of the confidentiality of the talks.

Mr. Cheney has talked with houses including HarperCollins and Simon & Schuster, where Mary Matalin, his close friend and adviser, is editor in chief of Threshold, the conservative imprint that is also publishing Mr. Rove’s book. Marji Ross, president and publisher of the conservative publisher Regnery, said she and others at the house had talked informally to Mr. Cheney and Mr. Barnett. But Ms. Matalin’s long history with Mr. Cheney has made her imprint a logical home for his book.

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