ITN's political editor, John Sergeant, has signed a six-figure sum with publisher MacMillan after his memoirs proved a bestseller.
Sergeant, who is leaving ITN in December, has already started work on a volume about Margaret Thatcher. It has the working title, Maggie, Me and the Handbag.
The book will include interviews with Tony Blair, Gordon Brown and a number of leading Conservatives. They will recall their memories of Lady Thatcher at the height of her power and after her fall from office.
The two-book, three-year deal comes after the critical and commercial success of Sergeant's memoirs, Give Me Ten Seconds, which sold more than 50,000 copies in hardback.
It has sold more than 17,000 copies in paperback in a month.
Sergeant was reported to have been given a £130,000 advance for his memoirs. The new deal is likely to be worth substantially more than double that.
Sergeant, 58, said: "It's a big deal. After the success of my memoirs I had the choice of either slaving on [at ITN] or being seduced into writing two more books. It's a very happy choice to have to make.
"Writing two books in three years might not sound a lot, but it is to me."
Sergeant will leave ITN in December after completing three years' service. He joined ITN as the successor to Michael Brunson in 2000 after nearly 30 years at the BBC.
As well as writing, he will remain a regular pundit on TV and radio.
He has already taken part in an upcoming tribute to Spike Milligan on BBC2, a celebrity News Quiz on Radio 4 and will appear on Parkinson in the autumn.
The subject of his third book is still to be decided.
"It doesn't mean to say I won't be doing any political punditry," said Sergeant. "But I won't be popping up on news programmes any more. I have done my time."
Sergeant said it was a coincidence that so many of the news "old guard" - such as Michael Buerk and Peter Sissons, who are both leaving BBC1's 10 O'Clock News - were departing at the same time.
"That's what tends to happen in journalism. Everything looks fixed and permanent and then there is a crack in the ice and the whole thing changes.
"It looks like there is a big crack at the moment but usually it means there has been a series of individual decisions.
"Perhaps we are seeing the departure of the generation of people who came to the forefront in the early 70s, when there was a tremendous expansion in broadcast news."
Sergeant has been critical of the new style of political reporting at his old employer, the BBC.
"I don't think all this gesturing impresses the public. They are not handwaving, they are drowning," he said.
"A good gesture is worth a thousand words but a bad gesture is worthless. It is incredibly irritating and a sign of nervousness. I don't think much of those video walls, either."
And he said broadcasters should be wary of deliberately aiming political programmes at under-45s.
"The idea you can categorise all 18 to 45-year-olds - that you must be daft if you are 18 or 25 - seems extraordinary. Not all young people stare at the screen with their mouth open thinking 'I don't understand this'."
Responding to suggestions by Sissons that ITV had sought to influence the ITN news agenda, Sergeant said: "No one has told me what to write. I have been left to my own devices more than I was at the BBC.
"I think ITN has an awful lot to teach the BBC in terms of numbers, quick decisions and leaner management but I have been in a privileged position."
