There is an ongoing debate that the people have stopped reading physical copies of the books which will lead to the decline of print media. A common claim is that the people will entirely turn to reading digitally only. However, there is a recent incident which has discarded these claims. One book that is selling like hot cakes currently in England is ‘Spare’, an autobiography of Prince Harry which sold 4,00,000 on its first day.
It is a tell-all memoir of Prince Harry who has broken and come out from the rigid walls of England’s constitutional monarchy. Although there is democracy in Britain, the Royal Family still continues to act as a constitutional monarch head of the State. Once upon a time our country except for a few parts was under the rule of the British. Whether it is Queen Elizabeth or her daughter-in-law Diana, there has always been curiosity about them around the world. Britain’s Prime Minister would meet the Queen everyday but neither the Prime Minister disclosed anything publicly regarding their discussions or the Queen ever spoke about the administration of the government.
Even the newly-crowned King has chosen to behave in royal discipline while in the public. Hence, it is only natural as per human behaviour to be curious about the happenings taking place behind the walls of Buckingham Palace. To add to all this, the release of the memoir of none other than the Prince himself heightened this curiosity to the next level.
Currently the book is available for purchase online for the price tag of Rs 2,229 and is in high demand. Prince Harry had hinted at revealing secrets about the Royal Family prior to the release of the memoir which has always been at the centre of attraction anyway. The book sold 400K copies on the first day of the release and curiosity surrounding the Royal Family is a major reason behind such a demand.
The British media has claimed that Prince Harry received Rs 164 crore from the publisher Penguin Random House. According to a report, Penguin would have to sell 1.3 million copies to recover their expenditure along with the sale of 400 K e-book copies. Needless to say, the book so far has sold way more than that and according to the Guinness World Records has become the fastest selling non-fiction book of all time. In a way, the people of England, a country which is regarded as the founders of democracy, has maintained the greatness of the Royal Family. The people have preserved the respect which has come from years of tradition and have also maintained the emotional bond with the Royal Family. Some may term this as modern slavery but one cannot deny that the British Royal Family always held an important place in the lives of Englishmen. In fact, that is what led to appointing ‘royal correspondents’ in English newspapers; a tradition which came to be socially accepted in due time. The media procedure to inform common people about the incidents related to the Royal Family gained massive reputation. This helped not only to keep the curiosity regarding the Royals alive, but also directly or indirectly left an unending imprint on peoples’ minds. Of course, the same media many times crossed the line by poking into the private lives of some of the well-known Royals.
That did damage the reputation of the Royal personalities but it did not reduce the attraction the British people have towards the Royals. The numbers do not lie and the number of copies sold by Harry’s memoir only reaffirms the interest common people hold for the Royals. If truth be told, whether it is about a Royal person or a common man, everyone does feel a connection if there is good news or bad news. The people made up of flesh and bones, crying, angry, simple…with all the human qualities, are probably seeking the similar experience from Harry’s ‘Spare’.
Applications from all over the world were called to work at the Royals’ palace as a sanitary worker and the salary as per the advertisement was 18,50,000 rupees that time. This could give us an idea about the extravagant level of services enjoyed by the Royal members. Hence, it is no surprise that people are always curious about the lifestyle of the Royals and reading ‘Spare’ is an attempt to take a sneak peek into just that. ‘Spare’ comes just days after the couple Harry and his wife Meghan, former TV actress, appeared in the hit Netflix documentary. A Royal correspondent through BBC has already panned the book saying ‘it is the weirdest book ever written by a Royal’ and, needless to say, this sets up the stage for future media storm as if the world does not have other problems to solve.
