Prince Harry's Memoir: A World Publishing Phenomenon

[MrsMaxDeWinter]

There will likely be several bashing threads on Harry's memoir before it is published, but I am interested in discussing with anyone who is interested in the very interesting marketing choices of the publishers and their approach.

English language editions of SPARE will be published on 10 January 2023 in EIGHT territories: the US, the UK, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, India, South Africa and Canada.

The book will also be published in translation in 15 additional languages:

SPANISH Plaza & Janés/Penguin Random House Grupo Editorial
GERMAN Penguin Verlag/Penguin Random House Verlagsgruppe GmbH, PORTUGUESE BRAZIL Objetiva/Grupo Companhia das Letras
PORTUGUESE PORTUGAL Objectiva/Penguin Random House Grupo Editorial, SIMPLIFIED CHINESE Penguin Random House China
DANISH Politikens Forlag
DUTCH Hollands Diep, an imprint of Overamstel
FINNISH Otava Publishing Company Ltd
FRENCH Éditions Fayard
GREEK Pedio Books
HUNGARIAN Corvina Kiadó
ITALIAN Mondadori,
POLISH Wydawnictwo Marginesy,
ROMANIAN Nemira Publishing House,
SWEDISH Albert Bonniers Förlag.

This is absolutely sensational as it means it will be simultaneously published in 23 territories on the same day.

There are not many books where simultaneous release occurs in different markets. From this, I would say that the book will more than earn its advance, just from the foreign sales alone.

They also chose a banger of a title as it puts focus on the troubling notion of the Spare in a system based on primogeniture, and one that imbues both intrinsic and extrinsic value based on a person's birth order.

Imagine growing up knowing that no matter how loved you may be, your constitutional role is ultimately to be the spare to the heir.

Can't wait to read it!

So many red flags.

And here is the always delightful Marina Hayde:

For a huge throng of the vicariously enraged, this week’s release of the cover of Harry’s forthcoming memoir has once again proved a ticket to near-apoplexy. The book is to be called Spare – a hilarious and brilliant title ...

Instead, the Sussexes draw more online and offline ire than homicidal and genocidal dictators. This feels somehow … uncool, on the part of the irate.

Perhaps, like me, you can’t quite work out in whose service the extreme anger at Harry’s every move is now unleashed. It supposedly used to be on unbidden behalf of Queen Elizabeth II, but now she is “sadly passed” ... it’s hard to decide for whom all this category-5 curtain-twitching fury is occurring. Is it for King Charles, who graspingly accepted literal suitcases of charity cash from a former Qatari prime minister, with one such holdall containing more than a million euros? The new sovereign also gratefully received – against all advice – a £1m payment from a member of the Bin Laden family. Yes, perhaps it is on Charles’s behalf that people are against anything that feels like an absolute pisstake by someone who is already beyond super-rich.

😁😁😁

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/oct/28/spare-prince-harry-memoir-sussexes

MrsMaxDeWinter, I've just had a look at the twitter account you mentioned above. There is no link to full polling that I could find - could you point me to where Ms Locke details the full polling results?

I don't think it is extreme anger at the Prince. It is just sadness that he would want to wash the dirty lilnen in public for money. His father would prefer he did not so that is perhaps a good enough reason as any not to have a book written. However I imagine the agreement he signed when he left would have covered this sort of thing and expect it is lawful (as long as nothing is untrue) that he is allowed to write it. Does anyone have a link to details of the agreement? Actually it may just have been an "arrangement". I am not sure if they had lawyers on each side www.royal.uk/statement-her-majesty-queen-0

I have always been a Meghan fan and liked Suits until so much of what she said was a provable lie, sadly (eg getting married 3 days before the royal wedding). If she could just find people to check the facts of what she says in advance she would have more supporters.

Next we’ll be amazingly informed that it’s in the same font in all the different books in all the different languages - more ‘phenomena’ for us to gasp in awe at

Or more likely they will have designed a new unique and extraordinary font which ‘shows glimpses of their undying love by the entwining of certain letter groupings like palm tree roots’

Marina Hyde is an expert at what she does - that extract you've detailed above is actually pretty worthy of a Daily Mail piece. She uses exactly the same tricks to get people frothing, eh? 'Grasping', 'curtain twitching fury'. Get a mention of the name Bin Laden in there too. Bingo!

@Ohnonevermind

if the reason why it is being described as a phenomenon is due to the fact that it is being released in lots or countries in lots of languages at the same time, then the publishing industry is about 20 years behind the rest of the world. That’s nothing to be proud of really

Not all books are published in translation. It is almost always the case that any book published in translation is published a year or so after it was first published in the original language. Sometimes many years after.

Think about it for a minute. Not every German book is published in English, and not every English book is published in Spanish etc. If the was otherwise, it would mean every single book published in every single language would be instantly published in English.

If we say, for instance, that a million books in all genres are published in English every year, that means a million books would be translated and published instantly in every language. And in turn, the books published in those languages would be published instantly in English, adding to the million books already published in English.

The industry just does not have that capacity.

Authors are lucky to have their books translated at all. It is an extraordinary thing to happen to an author.

Translation does not happen to every published book And it certainly does not happen that every book published in translation on the same day.

That's why, from an industry perspective, I called this book a "world publishing phenomenon".

The publishers think it will sell very well so are paying for all those translations which is their right if they want to do so. I would call that unusual rather than phenomenal. However I am sure they have a good idea about likely sale abroad so believe that to be a financially wise decision.

Indeed if it does not sell well then the decision might accurately be described as a "phenomenally stupid decision" I suppose but we shall wait to see. It is certainly likely to have quite a lot of interest.

@MrsMaxDeWinter

One brother is an author published in number of languages with quite a number of friends who are also widely published and my other brother has done some ad-hoc translation work in the past so I’m quite aware of how it all works in the industry

Its a simple economic consideration, based on potential sales and translation capacity. Hardly rocket science

@pumpkinscoop Look at her tweets over the last day or so, she talks about the polling and Camilla's absence from the DM story.

@Xenia Harry has as much right to write about his childhood as Charles had to authorise Dimbleby to write about his unhappy childhood with a mother he called cold and distant who sent him to a school he called Colditz in kilts. Ann Glenconner has some moving excerpts in the Daily Mail this weekend about her unhappy and abusive marriage, with gruesome details of domestic and sexual violence. Are you saying people like her who write memoirs about their lives are airing dirty laundry?

Or is it only Harry who is not allowed to write about his life?

Usually press accompanies book releases to push sales, so they’re often staggered based on that but Harry is considered ‘global’. We will have to see how his book sells.

the publishers are hoping for an Obama sized seller, will they get that or bench levels.

Yes, I've read her tweets back for several days. I thought she had the actual polling information she talks about, but obviously not - her tweets are conjecture.

I don't get some of these theses. If Meghan, in the beginning, was deemed unworthy because of her class and race, why did the wedding go ahead? Why did Prince Charles walk her down the aisle? Why was a formal (state?) wedding agreed and organised?

People can't have it both ways. It can't be that the Royal Family have such a cast iron grip that passports are seized and every move monitored, and yet they caved in to Harry's demand to have the wedding to whom he pleased, in the grand style he wanted, and to continue with all the big royal events and initiatives, as just below William - and with Meghan doing it with him. The Mental Health initiatives put Will and Catherine and Harry and Meghan on an equal footing and showed they'd be the Fab Four with a powerful coordination of roles. I don't see any denigrating going on. It would have been easy to do more sidelining - but the Royal Family didn't want to do it.

The Royal Family is based on a history of elitism, but the UK as we know it in this day and age, is not. Time marches on and so does the world. We have a modern monarchy whose influence has been demoted to thanking volunteers for the service that they render to the community. An example of this: I don't think Mike Tindall has blue blood. He was welcomed and was a favourite of The Queen.. The press stir things up about Carole Middleton's working class roots, but she is grandmother to the next in line.

The RF are elitist, so goes the thesis, but Meghan was welcomed and given the distinction of a formal mini-tour with the Queen, earlier than most who marry in.

Harry seems to be wholly malleable and jelly- like in both his opinions and his directions. For years, we've noticed that he just wants to have fun - although, he seems to have a good heart. I don't believe anyone in the RF objected to Meghan because it doesn't seem that anyone tried to talk him out of his choice.

Yes, it's really annoying when people on your course, Mrs Max de Winter, suggest its unusual that your English is so good. It is crass of them. However, I'd like to tell you that when you say that you are particularly interested in UK politicians whose careers promote the cause of diversity, that comes across to me, as you being insular and exclusive.

In that case, I hope your brothers and their friends can explain better than I have that simultaneous translation and publication do not happen to every book because, as you declared, the industry is "20 years behind", but because there is no capacity, including financial, to absorb every book published in every language. So when a deal like this happens, it is the exception rather than the norm. Glad you have trusted people who can explain it better than I can.

I have an amusing update for @hoooops : I am reading on Twitter ( an account run by R.S. Locke royal_suitor) that the full results of the poll I posted were so unfavourable to Camilla that the Daily Mail left her out so that Meghan could be the least popular.😁

Hmm I have to say this seems unlikely as Camilla has been consistently ahead of Meghan for some time. Plus the DM have an article with another similar poll and don't seem to mind admitting that Andrew is lower than Meghan. There is obviously something going on with leaving out Camilla though - maybe she is more popular than Charles!

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11369055/amp/Prince-Princess-Wales-crowned-Britains-popular-royals-latest-poll.html

😅 thanks reading this with a coffee in hand and made me chuckle

Edward and Sophie are also missing and I cannot imagine them ( if indeed anyone) being below Andrew.

They simply have the money and decided to spend it upfront for impact. Obviously the conditions of release have been part of the contract negotiation with PRH. They are investing in this with many chips. Just another red flag. Bring the popcorn 🍿

However, I'd like to tell you that when you say that you are particularly interested in UK politicians whose careers promote the cause of diversity, that comes across to me, as you being insular and exclusive.

I am insular and exclusive @Diverseopinions because I am happy that the UK has had 1 PM of colour, a handful of Secretaries of State and that more people of colour in both Labour and the tories are becoming visible in politics?

I am also happy ,by the way, that women like Angela Rayner are in politics, and that UK politics is becoming more diverse in race, class and sex.

Surely it's a good thing for our kids to see that race, class and sex are not a barrier to achievement in as many fields as possible? How does being happy that the UK is becoming more diverse in its politics make me insular and exclusive????

Yes and I would like to know the clawback provisions in their contract if it doesn't fly abroad. Neither party is dum in this deal.

@MrsMaxDeWinter

i quite get that, I also understand capacity, economics and profits too.

If translators are in short supply, that’s an economic issue, publishers have to prioritise books that will sell enough to warrant the translation and publicity costs but PH won’t travel too far and is too expensive to fund so the publishers won’t be ponying up lots of travelling expenses for him, which makes him cheaper overall to translate. Harry is allegedly cheap so I wouldn’t be surprised if he does a David Beckham (charging a fee for a flight he got for free)

He doesn’t speak any languages so won’t be appearing on any European chat shows either.

(Also like a PP I would like to see the full polling but can't find either set of results on the R+W or Ipsos website, so who knows?)

They simply have the money and decided to spend it upfront for impact. Obviously the conditions of release have been part of the contract negotiation with PRH. They are investing in this with many chips. Just another red flag. Bring the popcorn

This is not covered by conditions of release, but by the nature of rights Harry sold. In this case he sold what are called "World Publishing Rights". The advantage of this is that if the publisher sells on translation rights, it's a quick way for the author to earn on the advance, but the disadvantage is that an author could actually earn more in translation if you sell territory specific rights. Germany, Switzerland and Italy are incredibly lucrative markets for instance, often better than the UK/Commonwealth. Also, translation rights could go to an auction, in a bidding war.

On balance, I think this deal works great for Harry because it is with a global conglomerate that is able to sell rights to its own subsidiaries and affiliates .. allowing greater control on publishing dates, cover release etc ... creating a world publishing phenomenon😁

Yes and I would like to know the clawback provisions in their contract if it doesn't fly abroad. Neither party is dum in this deal.

There is no claw back provision of the kind you think in publishing contracts.

The advance is paid in thirds, on signing, delivery of approved manuscript and on publication.

Only if the book is not delivered is money forfeited.

The advance is calculated by the publisher based on how they think the book will sell. If it does not do well, they absorb the costs and the book is a loss.

If the sales exceed the advance, then the author earns annual royalties.

There is no financial cost to Harry, only to RPH, which is why they have rolled it out in this brilliant way, to ensure that it is ... a world publishing phenomenon. Okay I will stop saying that now😁

Unless you had sight of the contract, you don't know what they negotiated. Both sides would have been well advised, and I would not discard clawback provisions required by PRH, as well as any other conditions of release required by Harry in return. He could have sold the rights BUT PRH would still have the decision on whether to go global day 1. Plus plenty of negotiations on cost, promotion etc. If you have ever negotiated commercial contracts, you know there many ways to skin the cat, and you find a way that suits best both sides. My bet is some sort of clawback is in place.
Anyways I have my popcorn ready 🍿- I think it will be brutal, and the RF not very happy to say the least. But looks Harry has one shot at this, and looks he made a decision (or signed for it anyways).
I hope the millions he earns are worth all the public drama to @Xenia 's point.