Charles Spencer's book Diana Swan Song etc etc . Thread the second.

[BasiliskStare]

There has been interest from some who engaged with the topic , so I'm starting a new thread as we are on page 10 . I honestly didn't think it would engender so much interest.

Let me be absolutely clear here. Threads meander , and sometimes go off topic and sometimes amusingly and interestingly so. My intention with this thread is to discuss the book , related matters eg contemporaneous accounts, reviews , interviews etc I'm also , frankly, interested to see how Piers Morgan's reaction to it goes.

As has been so often said anyone is allowed to post whatever they like on a public forum. I'm just explaining why I have started this thread. I have no intention of policing it .

Let's see how it goes 😎

Thank you for that. I don't know what other nonfiction titles have been released at the same time . I also don't know what creditable sales figures PRH would like to get. I think it might end up - is this a book with longevity or will it sell a lot initially and then go on the remainder pile. But I don't know what a publisher would describe as a lot . Purely as a lay person I would think that is advance + publicity costs + author's royalties still leave the publisher with a profit. But this is an area of which I know almost nothing, so very happy if those who do know can comment.

This. Different times. I went to university in 1978, I was in the minority. My class mates mostly left school at 16, and went to work, or training as nurses or secretaries. You were an adult at 18. We would have laughed at being still considered children, with no agency.

We got married when I was 19 and DH was 21. Back then you weren't allowed to live together when you were students at university so quite a few people married as undergraduates. Still married 57 years later. 😊

He didn't cheat on her from the very beginning.

❤️

But I don't know what a publisher would describe as a lot . Purely as a lay person I would think that is advance + publicity costs + author's royalties still leave the publisher with a profit. But this is an area of which I know almost nothing, so very happy if those who do know can comment.

It would depend how big an advance they paid him.

Normal practice is that when a publisher contracts an author, they agree to pay a sum upfront, based on how many copies they think they will sell. Author then won't get any royalties until the book has sold enough copies to cover the advance. If the publisher pays out a big advance (as I would think they did to Spencer) and the book doesn't sell, they're left out of pocket and author won't earn any more from it.

Authors' royalties are only a small % of the cover price of the book - maybe 15%, I'm not up to date with that. Price also has to cover printing, distribution, warehousing, retailer's profit, publisher's other costs - cover design, proportion of general overheads and so on.

I should think this is a book they'd expect to sell a lot quite quickly, but not to sell steadily thereafter. So if it's not making money now, it probably never will.

Then there's all the Piers Morgan controversy, and we don't know how that will end. Too late to have the book withdrawn, I'd have thought.

Thank you @AlexandraCarrington . Yes I had forgotten the cost of actually making the book and distribution. But thank you. I'm not sure but I think this book might be a 9 day wonder. Not literally , but in the grand scheme of things , and PRH will very much not want to recall and pulp copies already made.

Yes I remember reading about girls who went to swiss finishing schools running businesses doing posh dinner parties and similar.

Yes Diana would never have went to university as only the very brightest did. But plenty did run small businesses.

Yes you could, but not in university accommodation.

I am about Diana's age and went to university. I don't know anyone who married at university. Lots of people marrying at university sounds more like the sixties than the early eighties.

@upinaballoon He knew Camilla from Cambridge. Who knows what he did or didn’t do in the intervening years? Clearly Diana didn’t know but Charles knew Camilla way before his marriage. Her whereabouts were clearly known to him!

Charles knew Camilla way before his marriage. Her whereabouts were clearly known to him!

Since Andrew Parker Bowles commanded the Household Cavalry, and also had a court appointment, it would be surprising if he didn't know where she was. What is that supposed to prove?

Lots of people marrying at university sounds more like the sixties than the early eighties.

When I was a student, 1970s, lots of people were engaged, and planned to marry within a year or so of finishing. The only ones I can think of who were married were mature students.

@AlexandraCarrington The point is he absolutely could have cheated from the beginning! Read the thread.

You probably profited by the change to the voting age in 1969 at which point the university authorities had to change the rules. I was at university in the swinging sixties.

The point is he absolutely could have cheated from the beginning!

Of course he could have. Anyone can cheat on their spouse any point. Diana could have cheated from the beginning too. But it's purely hypothetical; there's no evidence that either of them did, so I'm not sure what point you're trying to make.

Yes, but many things had changed between the QM' s marriage and Diana's. There had been social changes, such as the war and the swinging 60s, and all that that it. entailed. There was the Press as well, much more intrusive and less respectful. If I were to paraphrase Diana's famous sentence, " there were four people in our marriage, Charles, Diana, Camilla and the Press" and the TV of course What preparation do you give a princess of Wales-to -be? Also the QM married a man who wasn't destined to be the future king.

There was fuss about whether she used the word 'obey' because there was a fuss about everything she did. Just everything. If she popped into a sweetshop to buy a twix it would be front page news in the tabloids.

Congratulations on 57 years!

3 girls in my year got married at 16, 2 of them "had" to, as unmarried mothers were frowned on. My old boss got married at 18 for the same reason. Seems mad now looking back.

This exactly. It wasn't that the decision was controversial

@Mondommountain - if you see any indication as to how the book is selling on Wednesday - I'd love to know . But I could look as well as you , so just an aside. 💐

I agree that pretty much everything Diana did or said was news. However, at the time, it was thought to be somewhat unusual for a royal bride to omit obey. Anne said obey a decade earlier, and Sarah did a few years after Diana married. Sophie also did it in 1999.

@BasiliskStare

I’m interested to know how sales are going too. As we know it went straight to the top of the Amazon UK bestseller list on release, and one UK retailer reported selling thousands of copies on launch day.

It’s also apparently No. 1 in the UK Top 50 for last week.

Interestingly, it’s charting internationally too, although not that high. It’s No. 12 in Australia on Apple Books today, although it has dropped to No. 28 in the UK.

I still can’t find any actual UK sales figures yet though. Does anyone have access to the BookScan figures?

edit to add some ChatGPT stuff

🇨🇦 Canada: It’s #20 on Apple’s overall paid-book chart. More strikingly, the audiobook is #1 in Canada’s Biography & Memoir audiobook chart.
🇩🇰 Denmark: #4 on Apple’s paid-book chart.
🇳🇴 Norway: #9.
🇫🇷 France: #16.
🇸🇪 Sweden: #19.
🇪🇸 Spain: #45.
🇩🇪 Germany: #48.
🇮🇹 Italy: #49.
🇳🇱 Netherlands: #50.

Thanks @MajorSideEye.

It was number 3 on Amazon's bestseller list when I looked yesterday.

What about the Sunday Times bestseller list? Would it be next week it would be due (to allow for a full week of sales)?

I came across this story on TwiX today - thought some people might be interested.

It tells the story of the practicalities of making the Royal Wedding Ladybird book in 5 days - back when there was no internet or digital photography.

Royal Wedding Ladybird

Oh that was lovely to read

Yup!

That as interesting.