Bookshops stay open into the small hours to cater for midnight rush to buy memoir
‘It’ll be another title that the likes of Smiths and Waterstones will be heavily discounting from the go’
BOOKSHOPS extended their opening hours last night in expectation of a midnight rush to purchase Prince Harry’s memoir Spare.
The book finally went on sale today after almost a week of revelations from it being published in the media. The autobiography was put on sale early by Spanish booksellers last week, allowing publications including The Daily Telegraph to purchase copies before the official publication date.
The planned media blitz to promote the book has gone ahead anyway, with the Duke of Sussex conducting several pre-recorded television interviews to discuss the revelations it contains.
Publishing experts expected that the daily drip-feed of stories was more likely than not to boost sales of the memoir. Even the best of promotion plans would have struggled to secure so many headlines for such a long period of time.
As result, demand for the book is expected to be high. Whsmiths, the retailer, said that it was extending the opening hours of a number of its shops to allow eager readers to pick up a copy hours before anyone else.
About 10 shops across the country, including at Heathrow and Gatwick airports and Victoria and Euston train stations, were due to stay open into the night to welcome shoppers. Waterstones said it would open its flagship Piccadilly store an hour early, at 8am.
At 417 pages, the average reader would take around 13 hours to finish Spare, making it the perfect accompaniment for a flight to Singapore or Buenos Aires.
Despite the anticipation for the book, it is already being sold at a deep discount, with major booksellers including Waterstones offering it for £14, half the official price.
The practice, which has been used for other major hardback releases such as former US president Barack Obama’s recent memoir, is controversial. Independent bookshops are often unable to compete with such deep discounts, which are also offered by supermarkets.
“I’m assuming it’ll be another title that the likes of Smiths and Waterstones will be heavily discounting from the go, so it’s really not worth our while trying to compete,” one owner told The
Bookseller trade paper last month.