Prince Harry’s highly publicized memoir, “Spare,” sold a record-breaking 1.4 million copies during the first day of its release.
Critics have been circulating some of the more sensational segments of the British royal’s tell-all book, with many mocking some of the details Harry chose to share in the memoir. But the fact remains that the book is an enormous success from an economic standpoint.
The book was released on Tuesday and is currently being offered worldwide in 16 languages.
“The first full day of sales of Spare represents the largest first-day sales total for any nonfiction book ever published by Penguin Random House, the world’s largest trade publisher,” Penguin Random House said in a statement.
“While many books by public figures can be fairly categorized as ‘celebrity memoir,’ Spare is not that,” Gina Centrello, president and publisher of the Random House Group, said of the new memoir.
“Vulnerable and heartfelt, brave and intimate, Spare is the story of someone we may have thought we already knew, but now we can truly come to understand Prince Harry through his own words. 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,” the statement continued.
Meanwhile, Barack Obama’s 2020 memoir “A Promised Land” sold 887,000 copies in all formats on its first day in the U.S. and Canada, which at the time was a record-breaking sales number.
The Duke of Sussex wrote his memoir in an effort to explain himself following his departure from his role as a senior working royal. The memoir goes into detail about Harry’s childhood, his extreme grief following his mother Princess Diana’s death, and the ongoing drama between himself and his family, especially his brother Prince William, father King Charles, and his stepmother, Camilla.
Harry has been called out for factual errors. For example, the Duke of Sussex claims in the book that Meghan Markle had purchased a first-class ticket for her father to fly from Mexico to the U.K. from Air New Zealand.
The airline issued a statement asserting that wasn’t possible, saying, “We’ve never had flights between Mexico and the UK. And we only have Business Premier.”
They followed up with a joking tweet that said, “Introducing #SussexClass. Apparently coming soon.”
In the book, Prince Harry said he was at Eton College when he learned of the death of his great-grandmother, Elizabeth The Queen Mother, in 2002. But critics noted that it was well documented at the time that he was skiing in Switzerland with his father and brother when the event occurred.
Harry also says that his mother bought him an Xbox for his 13th birthday prior to her death in 1997, but perceptive readers pointed out that the Xbox didn’t come out until 2001 and wasn’t sold in Europe until the following year.
