Announced two years ago as a settling of accounts, this book, sold for 26.50 euros, reveals behind the scenes of the sensational departure of Harry and his wife Meghan Markle from the United Kingdom in 2020. ANGELA WEISS / AFP
Four weeks after its publication in bookstores, the book published by Fayard (Hachette group) is still a success.
Prince Harry’s revenge seems to fascinate the French as much as our Anglo-Saxon neighbors. Four weeks after its publication in bookstores, his memoirs entitled “The Substitute” (published by Fayard), have already sold 150,000 copies in France, reveals Le Figaro. The bet promises to be a winner for the publishing house of the Hachette group, which had negotiated the rights with the publishing giant Penguin Random House (a subsidiary of the Bertelsmann group). The house had seen things big by printing 210,000 copies as a first run. Since then, Fayard has already produced new reprints.
Announced two years ago as a settling of accounts, this book, sold for 26.50 euros, reveals behind the scenes of the sensational departure of Harry and his wife Meghan Markle from the United Kingdom in 2020. Far from the strategy of silence observed by the royal family in the face of each controversy, the Duke of Sussex recounts the tensions with his brother William, his father King Charles III and his stepmother Camilla. He confides, moreover, on some of the most intimate episodes of his life, such as the loss of his virginity or his relationship with cocaine. Beyond the excerpts broadcast to the international press and the eventful interviews granted by Prince Harry in recent days on television, some extracts from the book have leaked to the media after being put on sale by mistake in Spain, for several hours, five days before its release. Throughout the world, the book has been published in sixteen languages.
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The book, which hits the headlines for politicians and people around the world, does not therefore seem to be subject to a saturation effect on French citizens in the face of Harry’s omnipresence. In recent weeks, the prince has been everywhere, between his documentary commissioned by Netflix, and his numerous interviews in England and the United States. In the UK, it had already sold 400,000 copies by mid-January, two weeks after its release. In the United States, where the prince now lives with his wife Meghan Markle, The alternate, had sold 1.4 million copies on the first day of sales, a record figure for a non-fiction book.
Dethroned from the top 1
To market these tens of thousands of copies, Fayard had to anticipate the purchase of colossal volumes of paper, in a context where the costs of this raw material continue to soar. “It is with this type of resounding launch that we are happy to be part of a large group like Hachette. With distribution and distribution teams capable of anticipating and ensuring orders, with the utmost discretion»explained to us recently Isabelle Saporta, CEO of Fayard.
Despite the success of his memoirs, Prince Harry was still dethroned in early February in the ranking of best-selling books, by the young 24-year-old author Sarah Rivens. Volume II of his novel «Captive», published by Hachette Labest, convinced 53,257 buyers for its first week out, more than double the memoirs of the Duke of Sussex (21,383 copies). Behind, the first two volumes of Pierre Lemaitre’s trilogy on the Glorious Thirties follow each other in the ranking. The paperback version of the book The big world (19,564 ex.), and sa suite, silence and anger (17.204), published by Calmann-Lévy, are respectively 3rd and 4th in the ranking.
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