Robert B. Barnett, a giant in the publishing world who negotiated book deals for presidents, royalty and best-selling novelists while acting as a kind of consigliere for many of his political clients, died on Thursday in Washington. He was 79.

His death was confirmed by his law firm, Williams & Connolly. The cause was not disclosed.

Perhaps more than any other figure in publishing, Mr. Barnett wielded enormous influence in the market for political memoirs and helped to usher in the era of megadeals. He got eye-popping advances for his clients, in the seven- and eight-figure range.

He was a tenacious negotiator. He helped Hillary Clinton win an advance of $8 million for her 2003 memoir, “Living History,” and landed a reported $10 million deal for Bill Clinton’s 2004 memoir, “My Life.” In 2017, he shattered records when he helped Barack and Michelle Obama negotiate a joint book deal with Penguin Random House for a reported advance of about $65 million.

With some of his high-profile clients, Mr. Barnett did more than just negotiate deals; he acted as a political consultant and sounding board. In “Living History,” Mrs. Clinton described how, when she was in denial about her husband’s affair with the White House intern Monica S. Lewinsky, at first brushing off the stories of a tryst as a political smear campaign, it was Mr. Barnett who gently suggested to her that they might be true.

“Bob was a dear friend, a brilliant lawyer, and an indispensable political adviser,” Hillary Clinton said in a statement.

Mr. Barnett carved out an unusual role for himself in publishing. The business is largely based in New York City, but he worked in Washington. Most deals are negotiated by literary agents, but he was not an agent; he was a lawyer. Rather than taking a commission like an agent, which often amounts to about 15 percent of an advance, he charged an hourly fee, reported to be in the $750 to $1,000 range — a relative bargain when a book deal reached into the millions.

While Mr. Barnett was an unconventional figure in the book world, his list of prominent clients was perhaps unrivaled.

Besides the Clintons and the Obamas, he represented George W. and Laura Bush, Senator Mitch McConnell, former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, the Republican strategist Karl Rove and the married political consultants James Carville and Mary Matalin.

He worked with titans of business like Lloyd Blankfein, the former chief executive of Goldman Sachs, and Jack Welch, the former chief executive of General Electric, as well as the Prince of Wales, Queen Noor of Jordan and Barbra Streisand. Bob Woodward was a client, along with other journalism stars like Brian Williams, Lesley Stahl and Brit Hume. And Mr. Barnett represented best-selling novelists, among them James Patterson, Mary Higgins Clark and Khaled Hosseini, the author of “The Kite Runner.”

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