Prince Harry’s tell-all book Spare reportedly didn’t sell as many copies as originally hoped, with one royal commentator stating that the lack of copies sold did not “warrant his huge payday”.
According to royal commentator Daniela Elser, Spare “almost immediately broke records” and was set to ensure the former royal with some “success”.
However, a new report has now deemed the 416-page was a “financial fail”, according to former longtime Page Six deputy editor Paula Froelich.
Ms Froelich, who now works for US cable network News Station, did a deepdive into the sales numbers and found that the publication “would have had to sell more than twice the amount of books… than he did to earn back his advance.”
This comes after it was previously reported that Prince Harry was paid upfront by his publisher, Penguin Random House.
According to Ms Elser’s article for news.com.au, Harry’s title reportedly sold 1.2 million hardback copies.
However, according to Nation, it would have had to have sold 2.7 million for Penguin Random House to “come out even”.
Ms Froelich said that “hardcover sales accounted for 80 percent of book sales” so this would have been an indication into whether the book did well – or not.
It was previously reported that on its initial day of release – January 10 – Spare became a record-breaking success.
Spare was said to have sold more than 1.43 million copies in all formats in the United States, Canada and Britain.
This vast number included all pre-orders made for Harry’s title, according to its publisher.
In the days after its release, Shannon DeVito, who is the director of books at Barnes & Noble, said: “We sold books in every location — and we sold a lot of them.
“Some people came in right before work, some people came in on their lunch break, some people came in after. But the velocity of sales throughout the day was gigantic.”
Harry’s book deal, which was said to be worth approximately £15million, was expected to include more than just the one book.
Following the apparent success of Spare, speculation grew over whether Meghan Markle could follow in her husband’s footsteps and release her own memoir.
News of a possible book from the Duchess of Sussex remains unknown.
Despite this, biographer Tom Bower, who is the author of Meghan and Harry’s book Revenge, previously told GB News in September: “My information is that she is writing her memoirs and it will be a huge money-spinner.”
