🎙️ Voice is AI-generated. Inconsistencies may occur.
Prince Harry's memoir may sit happily in a "league of its own" but will have to be careful not to read like a "new age manifesto" to satisfy readers who won't want to be "preached to" by an A-List celebrity, especially considering the market slump in celebrity book sales, a leading memoir expert has told Newsweek.
Harry's highly anticipated "raw" and "unflinching" life story is due to be released on January 10, 2023, as part of the royal's multi-million-dollar deal with publishers Penguin Random House.
Titled, Spare, the book has been billed as a "landmark publication full of insight, revelation, self-examination, and hard-won wisdom about the eternal power of love over grief."
Much speculation has been made over the contents of the book since the deal was announced in 2021 promising a "wholly truthful" account of the prince's turbulent life, including the aftereffects of the death of his mother, Princess Diana, and circumstances surrounding his working exit from the royal family.
Rutger Bruining, CEO and founder of leading memoir-writing service StoryTerrace, told Newsweek that despite celebrity memoirs floundering at the tills this quarter, Harry's offering sits apart which should see a promising return on the publisher's hefty investment.
"Prince Harry's memoir is such a media sensation that to a certain extent it's almost impervious to market trends. Of course, there aren't any guarantees," he said.
"It will be interesting to see how sales compare in the U.S.—where Harry's popularity seems to keep rising—vs the U.K. What might happen is a surge of interest in the first weeks after the book's publication and then a steep tapering off as people may be less motivated to buy the book if they feel they can get most of the juicier details from any excerpts that may be published in advance of publication or from Netflix."
The prince's new Netflix series Harry & Meghan is released just weeks before the memoir which may leave potential readers weary of the royal recovering old ground.
"He's had quite a life so as far as a strong narrative, the book should deliver," said Bruining.
"Especially if he opens up about how his mother's death affected him, his time serving in Afghanistan, his wild university years, and then his love story with Meghan."
An important caveat to this is that the royal shouldn't move too closely into the "new age" or self-help genres.
"What they need to be careful about is including anything in there that reads like a New Age manifesto," Bruining advised. "Readers aren't going to buy this book to be preached to."
Despite this, Bruining maintains that the book's prospects in the U.S. may fare better than in the prince's home country.
"This book sits in a league of its own. But it will definitely be interesting to see how it performs in light of the downturn of 'celebrity memoirs' as the audience identifies less with the struggles of A and B-listers," he said.
"What's more interesting to watch is how the book fares in the U.S. versus the U.K., where perceptions and feelings about Harry and Meghan are currently less positive/ forgiving than in the U.S. A well-received book could turn the U.K. sentiment around. If it is just written for a U.S. audience, it could completely miss the spot and create a further downward spiral in terms of the couple's popularity in the U.K."
A recent poll for Newsweek by Redfield & Wilton revealed that 47 percent of the American public supported Harry's decision to publish his memoir versus just 10 percent who were against.
Spare is published globally by Penguin Random House on January 10, 2023.
Do you have a question about King Charles III, William and Kate, Meghan and Harry or their family that you would like our experienced royal correspondents to answer? Email royals@newsweek.com. We'd love to hear from you.
About the writer
James Crawford-Smith is a Newsweek Royal Reporter, based in London, U.K. His focus is reporting on the British royal family ... Read more