This year was full of juicy celebrity memoirs, with stars like Britney Spears and Barbra Streisand telling all and Prince Harry topping the charts with his explosive book.
But despite the media frenzy, the large advances paid to celebrities appeared to exceed the publishers’ profits.
Paula Froelich’s NewsNation’s “The Scoop” crunched the numbers to see if a book made back its advance based on how much the books cost and how much celebrities were paid — numbers that are rarely published but are leaked for the Prince Harry and Spears.
“An advance is a risk that the publisher is willing to pay. If you pay too much and it doesn’t sell, it’s not good. If they sell well, it’s worth it,” Dan Strone, CEO of literacy agency Trident Media, told NewsNation.
Froelich’s analysis, which he shared with Nichole Berlie on NewsNation Live, found that “Spare,” the first of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s four books with Penguin Random House, was a publicity victory but a financial failure.
Publishers paid a lot of money for celebrity memoirs this year, and based on how many were sold, it appears they didn’t make much profit, according to a new report. AFP via Getty Images According to calculations, Harry would have had to sell more than twice as many books (2.7 million copies) at the original price of $36 as he did to recoup his advance, Froelich discovered. AP
The prince may have reportedly received up to $20 million up front, but despite topping the charts, he only sold 1.2 million hardcover books.
He would have had to sell twice as much to recover the advance.
Britney Spears’ “The Woman in Me,” which reveals information about her conservatorship and her abortion while dating Justin Timberlake, was another flop, but it won in public relations. Spears reportedly refused to do press for the book and it sold 1.1 million copies, but received $15 million in advance.
Britney Spears’ explosive book is full of juicy details about her past relationships, as well as her conservatorship that came to an end in 2021. AP
Streisand would have had to sell almost six times as many copies of her book as she did to make it worth it to the publisher, according to estimates of what her advance may have been.
Froelich ruled that Arnold Schwarzenegger’s “Be Useful: Seven Tools for Life” and Elliott Page’s “Pageboy” were financially unclear.
SNL star and comedian Leslie Jones’ memoir sold 15,000 hardcover copies. AP
The obvious flops were the poor-selling reads by John Stamos, Kristin Chenowith, and Leslie Jones.
“The numbers here suggest that some celebrities shouldn’t write memoirs at all,” public relations guru Paul Bogaards told NewsNation.
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Source: vtt.edu.vn