Prince Harry’s incendiary memoir Spare has managed to break records and become the fastest-selling non-fiction book of all time for Penguin Random House despite being leaked days before release.
As per The New York Times, the Duke of Sussex’s incendiary tell-all became the publisher’s highest-selling non-fiction book on the first day of its release, with 1.4 million first-day and pre-order sales in the US, UK, and Canada; the book moved 400,000 copies in the UK alone.
Talking to The Hollywood Reporter, Gina Centrello, the president of Random House Group, said: “Looking at these extraordinary first-day sales, readers clearly agree, Spare is a book that demands to be read, and it is a book we are proud to publish.”
In contrast, former US President Barack Obama’s 2020 title A Promised Land recorded 887,000 first-day sales in the US and Canada, and his wife Michelle Obama’s popular memoir Becoming took a week to sell 1.4 million copies.
The success of Prince Harry’s book is especially noteworthy given that it was leaked days before its release, and even accidentally went on sale in Spain five days prior to release.