WASHINGTON -- Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin will join Fox News as a contributor, a job that establishes her as an official member of the mainstream media she lambasted in her own bestselling memoir as "worthless as a source of factual information anymore."

Palin is expected to provide political commentary and analysis for a number of Fox properties, including Fox News Channel, Fox Business Network, FoxNews.com and special event political programming for Fox Broadcasting. That means she'll be on a number of shows, the network said.

In a statement provided by Fox, the 2008 Republican vice presidential candidate said she was "thrilled to be joining the great talent and management team at Fox News. It's wonderful to be part of a place that so values fair and balanced news."

The network didn't disclose how much the multiyear deal is worth, but it gives Palin a platform on the nation's top-rated cable news network. She will have a role similar to that of former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee and other former political figures who serve as talking heads, such as former Democratic vice presidential candidate Geraldine Ferraro.

Palin also will host periodic episodes of the cable news channel's "Real American Stories," a new series the network describes as "exploring inspirational real-life tales of overcoming adversity throughout the American landscape." The series is expected to debut this year. It will be produced from New York.

Palin has "captivated everyone on both sides of the political spectrum" and is expected to add a "dynamic voice" to the Fox lineup, said Bill Shine, the cable network's executive vice president for programming.

Palin's memoir, "Going Rogue," has been a best-seller since its Nov. 17 release. She stepped down as Alaska governor in July.

Although her new role puts her in the position of commenting on the news rather than being the subject of it, Palin herself remains one of the most talked-about figures in American politics.

New details from her bid for the vice presidency emerged Monday with the release of "Game Change," a look at the 2008 presidential campaign by journalists John Heilemann and Mark Halperin.

The book details how McCain tapped Palin as his running mate and offers an insider account of the Alaska governor's time on the campaign trail.

According to the book, when Palin was picked, some of McCain's advisers were surprised at how calm and collected she seemed -- even though they had warned her that she was about to become "one of the most famous and recognizable people on the planet."

One of McCain's advisers, Steve Schmidt, told the authors he was struck by Palin's serenity on the way back to Alaska before her announcement as the Republican vice presidential pick. When he told her she seemed calm, "Palin nodded and replied, 'It's God's plan.' "

The McCain campaign found soon after the convention that Palin "had a tendency to shade the truth," Heilemann and Halperin reported.

"Had she really said 'thanks, but no thanks' to the Bridge to Nowhere. Well, no. Had she really sold the state jet on eBay? Not exactly ... At McCain HQ, a white board was set up with a list of controversies the press was exploring ... The campaign quickly discovered that consulting her about any issue on the board inevitably yielded a sanitized version of reality."

Palin, they reported, had pledged to the McCain campaign "to banish Alaska temporarily from her thoughts and concentrate on the task at hand." But she and her husband, Todd, were "fixated on her reputation in the state," the authors reported. Todd "griped about how few McCain-Palin yard signs he saw when he drove around back home. Sarah voiced so much anxiety over her gubernatorial approval ratings that Schmidt promised to commission a poll in Alaska to prove her fears were groundless."

According to the book, Palin had an especially difficult time preparing for her debate with Sen. Joe Biden, the Democratic vice presidential nominee.

The debate preparations were going so badly that McCain suggested they move them from Philadelphia to his retreat in Sedona, Ariz., and called in Sen. Joe Lieberman, the former Democratic vice presidential candidate, to help out.

"The situation was wildly unconventional already: a Democratic senator being imported into a top-secret lockdown to assist a Republican vice-presidential candidate whose mental stability was in question," according to the book.

Many of McCain's closest advisers believed that if he were to win the presidency, it was essential that Palin "be relegated to the largely ceremonial role that premodern vice presidents inhabited ... some in McCainworld were ridden with guilt over elevating Palin to within striking distance of the White House," the authors reported.

The Obama team had the same sense, the authors said. One adviser leading a focus group with swing voters watched as a potential voter "let loose with a string of not-unfamiliar broadsides against Obama," including raising questions about whether he is Muslim or was born in the United States.