Prince Harry's Spare Set New Guinness World Record For Fastest-Selling Non-Fiction Book Ever
Update: 2023-01-16 13:39 IST
Prince Harry’s Spare Set New Guinness World Record For Fastest-Selling Non-Fiction Book Ever
Spare, the contentious tell-all memoir by Prince Harry, sold 1.43 million copies on its first day of release in the UK, US, and Canada, achieving a guinness world record by the fastest-selling non-fiction book of all time.
Given that Spare was released five days early in Spain, its exceptional sales results are all the more remarkable. Because of this, several of the discoveries made in the book—such as information about Harry's drug usage and a dispute with his older brother Prince William—made headlines all over the world before the book was formally released on 10 January.However, it's certainly possible that instead of making customers buy less Spare, these delicious insights may have encouraged them to buy more.
Harry also acknowledged that his family was "helping and abetting" the British media in their efforts to disparage him and his wife, Meghan Markle. When asked how things would be different if his mother, Princess Diana, were still living, Harry responded that they wouldn't have reached this point.
Two million copies of Spare were printed for its US release, and due to the overwhelming demand, a second print run has been planned. Many merchants are offering it at a discount of up to 50%, despite having a cover price of $36 in the US and £28 in the UK. J.R. Moehringer, an American novelist and journalist who previously ghostwrote memoirs for tennis legend Andre Agassi and multibillionaire Phil Knight, wrote Spare.
Prince Harry's eagerly awaited biography isn't his first appearance in the public eye since resigning from the royal family; in 2021, he and Meghan were famously interviewed by Oprah Winfrey, and in 2022, they put out a Netflix docuseries titled Harry & Meghan.
The January 2023 issue of People magazine will have Harry on the cover. The fastest-selling non-fiction book prior to Prince Harry and Barack Obama's books being published belonged to Michelle Obama, whose memoir Becoming (2018) sold 725,000 copies on its first day.
Meanwhile, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, the concluding book in J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series, has the fastest overall sales rate. On July 21, 2007, the day of its release, 8.3 million copies were sold.