SPARE - Harry’s book release announced

[Rinoachicken]

So he’s called it ‘Spare’ and it’s being released on 23rd Jan.

I agree January is a strange month to release a book. That's why I think the publishers are expecting to make most of their money from serialisation. If anything, a usually quiet month like January might be good for that purpose.

As to who will serialise it in Britain, good question. I'm not sure it matters what 'they' think, as this is Harry's book, not Meghan's. So I guess it will be between him and the publishers. You'd expect Britain to be the market with most interest in this book, so I'm sure it will be serialised in at least one of the papers. We'll see.

I expect the book will sell a lot of copies, so much so that they are happy to lease it after Christmas (I interpreted that as a sign of confidence anyway, an I don’t think it’s mis-placed!).

On the serialisation point, does that happen in other book markets? I know it’s a well-used route to market in the UK, but I wasn’t sure it’s otherwise common.

I’ve never heard anything of a publisher releasing a book after Christmas if they believed it would sell huge amounts. Pre-Christmas is when all the books expected to be bestsellers are released.

Very odd. It makes me think they’re trying to find less competitive release date to give it a better chance at making the bestseller lists.

I've thought all along it was odd that it was not released in time for Christmas

It's currently at no.8 in biographies and no.37 in top sellers on Amazon.

Could it have peaked already? 🤔

I think that they are being realistic. They wont print too many excess copies - just the pre-orders and a few extra. Most people will gladly consume free online content about H&M as light entertainment but few will actually pay a cent for it.

I'm just waiting for the press summaries of the juicy bits serialisations 😁

Interestingly some enterprising souls appear to be flogging notebooks featuring the cover.

One such chancer entrepreneur has priced their offering higher than the actual tome 😎

The Netflix docuseries about their "love story" is lined up for release in December seemingly. Meghan has been singing the praises of the director.

The book has such a negative vibe, it doesn’t seem the kind of book you’d buy as a gift so maybe that’s why they are avoiding the Xmas market. But what do I know?!

Maybe they were worried to be in direct competition with Michelle Obama. However, I thought someone on here who knew about publishing - and a bit about the publishing of Harrys book - said the publishing house couldn't physically get it out before Christmas.

Personally, I still suspect it was delayed by some hasty revisions/retractions after HMQ's death

I thought it was the opposite. Isn't she now saying that the direction of the docuseries is entirely on the director and not on them?

Their Netflix documentary director’s partner is one of the Kennedy’s (Rory) which might explain their award.

Ahhh that makes a lot of sense about the award 😂

Nooo. Surely that can't be right! But Harry did get invited to speak at UNon Mandela Day because he was partnering the Mandela Foundation in some sort of initiative.
It's so interesting how incestuous this charity world is and how the management of the charities use their charities for their own advancement. Following M&H through their different charity connections has been an eye opener. I've worked in the charity sector for years and I've never seen the like.

Yes , M is trying to distance herself . In an interview she said that they had to trust someone else to tell their story . In other words if - as expected- it goes tits up , it won’t be her fault !

They were told in February, so I guess that them getting notified of the award has all been filmed, wasn’t that a lucky coincidence, rather like the Polo prize ceremony,

Perhaps the archbishop gave it to them in their garden 😉 in a ceremony just for them.

If you study the donor lists of some of these charities and foundations, you will see that, sometimes, whole countries are listed as donors, which means that it is taxpayer money that is being 'donated' transferred. Some of these countries are poor - very poor. The lack of concern for the ordinary citizen of these poor countries that these so-called 'caring' individuals display is truly shocking. Still, words such as "But we care so much" are cheap and effective while the real part of the deal - 95% of hard cash, is pocketed

I honestly don't believe that H&M are interacting with these charities to take 95% expenses out to spend on themselves. I believe they're genuinely interested in charitable work. I do think, though, that they approach it from a self-promoting way. But maybe there is no other way to do it when you need money in donations to make a living. Without the ability to donate money (I think that's their charity - donating money as opposed to hands on stuff?), I'm not sure how relevant they are in the charity sector.
But it's like a self-congratulatory circuit as these charities shuffle money and glory around between each other. To a person like me, who used to see the graft of box rattling and charity shops and the deliberating over how to get best value out of every penny given, I find it all quite sickening.

When I was growing up, we had a neighbour , who was in her 90s at that time, who would go round houses with a British legion collection tin every years. She was so thin and frail but she was determined to do it. She’d done it for decades. It’s people like that who should get awards not celebrities or millionaires.

I honestly don't believe that H&M are interacting with these charities to take 95% expenses out to spend on themselves.

But...Delaware?

Yes, it is people like that who should get awards, but they rarely do. Still, at least they are discussed with kindness, which, in my opinion, is worth something.

They put all the companies in Delaware so there is an argument that it made sense to stick their foundation in with them there too. We don't know what sort of expenses they're drawing down and I don't know what the laws of the US and Delaware are in producing public accounts for public charities. It seems very different from the UK and nowhere near as transparent.

I do feel disgusted about how the charity circle seems to fund itself in the US but it's easy to forget how different our two cultures are. Charity in the US seems to be much more about these big social events, charging thousands for seats where very little goes back to the charity. But then again, we have the UK One Young World charity and I still have no idea what that charity actually achieves so maybe I'm unfair to overly criticise the US.

However, I'm not criticising H&M for being involved in that world because ultimately there's nothing they can do other than participate. They need the publicity from these awards, they need the money generated from these awards to hand out (back?) to other charities otherwise they don't have a charity. I like some of the causes they've supported so I guess they're doing good things. But then it's all so murky it's difficult to know.

“When I was growing up, we had a neighbour , who was in her 90s at that time, who would go round houses with a British legion collection tin every years. She was so thin and frail but she was determined to do it. She’d done it for decades. It’s people like that who should get awards not celebrities or millionaires”.

I absolutely agree with you on this Gilmorehill.

As long as famous, rich people are getting awards for charity, I don’t see what Harry and Meghan are any less deriving than other rich, famous people, though

There’s a lady who lived not that far from me, who has fostered 19 children. She is currently fostering six children I think. She deserves an award for sure. I’d like to see her get more recognition. She did get a little recognition after her house burned down in the 2019-2020 bushfires in Australia. But it took her losing everything in a bushfire to get any recognition. Ffs.