Former vice-president Dick Cheney, shown speaking in Washington on May 21, will publish his memoirs in 2011. Former vice-president Dick Cheney, shown speaking in Washington on May 21, will publish his memoirs in 2011. (Luis M. Alvarez/Associated Press)

Former U.S. vice-president Dick Cheney has signed a deal valued at $2 million US to write his memoirs, according to New York publisher Simon & Schuster.

Cheney, known for his secrecy while in office, has spoken publicly of writing memoirs of his long career in government and had been seeking a publisher for about two months.

It will be published in the spring of 2011 by Threshold Editions, an imprint of Simon & Schuster that also plans to publish the memoirs of Karl Rove.

Mary Matalin, a former close aide to Cheney, is editor in chief at Threshold Editions.

Cheney is already working on the book, which he plans to write in collaboration with his daughter, Liz Cheney.

His as-yet-untitled book will appear a few months after a memoir by former president George W. Bush.

Although books by vice-presidents seldom attract a lot of interest, Cheney's is expected to have a wider impact because of the stamp he left on the role.

He is widely considered the most powerful vice-president in history and has a controversial record as a key architect of Bush's war on terrorism.

The book will cover his early political career in the administrations of Republican presidents Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford and George H.W. Bush, as well as his time under George W. Bush.

He also will write about his period as chief executive of Halliburton Co., the company that became one of the largest private contractors in Iraq after the U.S. invasion.

Several unauthorized books have been written about the former vice-president, including parodies such as Dick Cheney's Diary and Duck! The Dick Cheney Survival Bible, and Barton Gellman's critique of his influence in the Bush administration, titled Angler: The Cheney Vice Presidency.

Cheney: The Untold Story of America's Most Powerful and Controversial Vice President was a more sympathetic portrayal by author Stephen Hayes.

With files from the Associated Press