In today’s paper, we discuss the conundrum faced by publishers eager to jump on the Sarah Palin bandwagon but who are unable to do so because there’s not enough time before the election to get a book written, printed, and distributed. The only house with a Palin bio on the market at the moment is Epicenter Press, a tiny operation run out of Washington State that specializes in books about Alaska. They put out Kaylene Johnson’s Sarah: How a Hockey Mom Turned Alaska’s Political Establishment Upside Down in the spring, and had to print about quite a few extra copies of it when McCain named Palin as his VP two Fridays ago.

As of today Epicenter can take a breather, as Seattle-based literary agent Elizabeth Wales has arranged for them a co-publishing deal with Christian publisher Tyndale House, home of the hugely popular Left Behind co-author Jerry Jenkins.

According to one person familiar with the situation, Ms. Wales originally tried to work out a deal with Threshold Editions, the conservative imprint of Simon & Schuster which recently published Swift Boat-author Jerome Corsi’s hit-job on Barack Obama, The Obama Nation.

Tyndale’s publisher Doug Knox said in a statement that the first print run of Sarah under the new agreement will be 250,000 copies. Those will begin shipping on September 10th, and orders are being accepted now.

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