Prince Harry’s Spare is currently the No 1 in the UK Amazon bestseller charts and among the biggest pre-order titles for high-street retailers, ahead of its official release on Tuesday.
Spare, the Duke of Sussex’s first memoir, was always expected to be a big release, but recent publicity around the book – including revelations that Harry and his brother Prince William had a physical fight, that the royal siblings asked their father not to marry Camilla, and that Harry took cocaine – has seen a surge of interest in the title.
An ITV interview with Harry, which aired on Sunday, also saw him defending writing the book. He said that the “level of planting and leakings from other members of the family means that, in my mind, they have written countless books, certainly millions of words have been dedicated to trying to trash my wife and myself to the point where I had to leave my country”.
Large retailers, including Amazon and Waterstones, have been offering the book for £14 – half of its £28 RRP – since it went on pre-sale.
Spare has consistently been in the Amazon book bestsellers list since its publication date was announced last year. It currently occupies the No 1 slot in the overall bestsellers chart.
It’s also been selling well at Waterstones, where John Cotterill, Waterstones non-fiction category manager, said it was “one of the biggest pre-order titles of the last decade for Waterstones”.
“We expect the high customer interest to be sustained on and after publication, with everything pointing to Spare being one of 2023’s bestsellers,” Cotterill added.
At independent bookshops though, demand has been fairly low, and the pre-publication news may have resulted in less interest, said one bookseller.
Hazel Broadfoot of Village Books in Dulwich said she had had a “handful” of pre-orders for Spare, although it’s not the core market for the shop.
“I’ve no idea what the demand will be tomorrow,” she said. “[There’s been] no indication of a surge in demand following all the press coverage over the last week – if anything I’d expect that level of coverage to dent the sales potential; it doesn’t feel that the book can hold any secrets now.
“Compared with pre-orders for Bob Mortimer and Richard Osman in the autumn, and the latest Elly Griffiths, coming this month, orders for Spare would barely register.”
Independent bookshops previously told the Guardian that they were unable to compete with the large discounts, and did not expect many pre-orders for the book.
Janet Brakspear of The Corsham Bookshop in Wiltshire had initially planned to stock a couple of copies of Spare, and did not expect many sales through her shop.
However, the shop has had five pre-orders and has ordered an additional seven copies. “We have upped our original estimate,” said Brakspear, “just so we get it on publication day as there does seem to be an amount of fuss about it.”
Full first week sales for Spare will be released next Tuesday by Nielsen, which monitors book sales in the UK.
