Piers Morgan
(Picture: Getty Images)Piers Morgan’s book, Wake Up: Why the World Has Gone Nuts, sold a reported 5,650 print copies since it was published a year ago - despite him having close to 8m followers on Twitter.
According to a report fromThe New York Times, it’s just one of many book sales figures that shows the disconnect between social media acclaim and publishing success.
Within the piece, Morgan’s book was described as having a “weaker showing” with sales figures of sub-6,000, according to industry data compiler BookScan.
Once people on Twitter caught wind of the situation, they were quick to comment on the media personality’s book woe.
“More people will read this tweet and/or listen to literally an average episode of any of my podcasts than will have bought Piers Morgan’s book. This makes me slightly more at peace with the world,” someone wrote.
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“Your book is not doing well, is it, Piers?” another added.
A third wrote: “I would like ‘Has sold more copies than Piers Morgan!’ on the front of my books in addition to ‘NYT Bestselling Author.’”
Morgan took to his Twitter to address the New York Times report and insisted that he sold “nearly 300,000” copies of the book.
This New York Times article says my book Wake Up has only sold 5,650 copies.
— Piers Morgan (@piersmorgan) December 7, 2021
Ironically, their fact-checkers need to Wake Up...it's sold nearly 300,000 in all formats & has been a runaway No1 best-seller. https://t.co/AoWjv5kncl
This prompted people to poke fun at the tweet, with one jokingly asking: “You wrote a book?”
Check out some of the other responses below:
No, obvs I’m not trying to work out what my books sales would be if they had the same amount of book engagement I already have, but with Piers Morgan’s follower count. pic.twitter.com/aW5nXpR5qi
— Dr Fern Riddell (@FernRiddell) December 7, 2021
This week I’ve learned that my month-old book has outsold both Chris Christie and Piers Morgan so that’s… something
— Britni de la Cretaz (@britnidlc) December 7, 2021
Apparently buying it yourself doesn't count towards the final tally...
— Paul (@itspaulactually) December 7, 2021
I've sold more books than Piers Morgan lmao whew. What a time. https://t.co/5KMTwHLUy6
— Steph (@StephanieYeboah) December 7, 2021
Just me, selling more books than Piers Morgan lol pic.twitter.com/zwlqcYpx36
— Joe Kassabian (@jkass99) December 7, 2021
Since his book was published last October, Morgan left ITV’s Good Morning Britain.
Eventually, he landed a major deal with Rupert Murdoch’s NewsCorp that will include a “new global TV show,” two weekly columns and another book as a “follow up” to Wake Up.
Morgan isn’t the only prominent figure to have reportedly low book sales despite their social media presence.
US Representative Ilhan Omar’s May 2020 book, This Is What America Looks Like: My Journey from Refugee to Congresswoman, only sold a total of 26,000 copies spanning print, E-book formats, and audio, despite having 3m Twitter followers.
Justin Timberlake’s 2018 book, Hindsight: & All the Things I Can’t See in Front of Me, sold only 100,000 copies, despite having 62.6m Instagram followers.
