Humor
I Acquired Rights To Prince Harry’s Debut Memoir Before His Royal Departure Usurped My Entire Marketing Strategy
One of the first changes I made to Harry’s book was changing the title from “Second to None” to the more humble “Spare”
The term “unprecedented times’’ has left no stone unturned, including Buckingham Palace itself. After centuries of relatively little drama — other than the standard mysterious car crashes, infidelity, and racist costumes — the heteropatriarchal foundation of the family, and by extension the book I acquired, has been irrevocably uprooted.
It started with the marriage of Harry and Meghan. The royal family readily welcomed Meghan by allowing her to live in their palace, wear their filigree tiaras, and have a wedding without any conspiracy for untimely death. So what if they expressed the occasional untoward comment about her race? This is obviously a long-standing family tradition. In fact, when Meghan-gate first happened, I thought it might just be a publicity stunt to bolster sales for the book. Especially after the Oprah interview made it go viral. Didn’t we all fully expect them to return home before the Fourth of July, a holiday that celebrates a war waged directly against Harry’s great-great-great-great-great-grandfather?
It was not until I saw a tweet by literary hottie Joyce Carol Oates, that I understood that this royal departure was real. Joyce said with prescience: “A literary agent told me that he cannot even get editors to read first novels by young white male writers, no matter how good; they are just not interested.” When I realized this problem could doubly apply to first memoirs by young white male writers, I was shattered. It became clear to me that the more privileged you are, the less likely your books are to succeed. I am indebted to Twitter, one of the last few remaining safe spaces for white males, for unveiling the true state of publishing to me. It gave me enough time to change my marketing strategy around Prince Harry’s book.
I am still glad I acquired Harry’s book, which can hopefully make relevant the story of a man who has merely been known as “the hotter prince” his entire life. It is clear to me now that the memoir will have the foremost marketing challenge of differentiating Prince Harry from the array of English Harrys who first pioneered art in the U.S.: Harry Potter and Harry Styles. I will have to remind my audience that our Harry is neither fictional nor a gay icon. Take this in comparison with Meghan Markle. Her work as an actor and podcaster extraordinaire has never been confused with, say, Whoopi Goldberg or Michelle Obama, and I have yet to see anyone confuse her 1996 book A Face Without Freckles…Is a Night Without Stars with anything by Toni Morrison.
One of the first changes I made to Harry’s book was changing the title from “Second to None” to the more humble “Spare”. I also made him a more empathetic figure in this rewrite, which is now a tender examination of the exquisite bravery he demonstrated while escaping from the inbred jowls of British aristocracy for love. Readers will be brought to tears as they imagine how Harry fled his home with two young children, without even the protection of publicly-funded bodyguards. Crossing oceans to get his first job at age thirty-eight based on family name alone, leaving behind centuries of stolen inheritances. And most wrenchingly, having to celebrate his first Thanksgiving, a holiday known for its merry-making with racist family members, without his own racist grandmother. Yet this is the riveting life of Prince Harry.
Of course, merely changing the premise has not been enough to divert the memoir’s imminent lackluster performance. So far, there have been no TikTok unboxings showcasing the russet and beige cover from swaths of confetti, no merch-laden pop-up trucks across New York City, and definitely no tote bags with Harry’s searing glare blazoned onto them. Harry can’t help that this book will never have as catchy a title as I’m Glad My Mom Died. If anything, this is the one fact everyone in the U.S. knows is NOT true for him.
Nevertheless, I have finagled a fool-proof marketing strategy:
1) I will galvanize a small army of unpaid publishing interns to start a conspiracy thread on Reddit (“r/HarryTheSpare”). They will convince the mass that the particular way Harry’s hair ruffles reveals royal secrets about the death of Princess Diana, or that the blurbs on the book are actually a coded Illuminati message about the downfall of cryptocurrency
2) I will create 1000 exclusive “Spare” bucket hats and send them to book influencers all over the country. Anyone wearing one will instantly be a sex icon.
3) If all else fails, I will have my father buy the rest of the inventory of whatever doesn’t sell. Not a copy will be “spared”.
