Sales of Johnson’s memoir ‘well below expectations’ as publisher grapples to recoup £2m advance

News in Brief

Publisher HarperCollins may not recoup its £2 million advance on Boris Johnson’s political memoir – and is facing heavy losses
The ex-PM’s book is said to be flopping in shops
It has sold less than 50,000 copies, leading to suggestions HarperCollins could have “overpaid massively”.

In Detail

Sales of Boris Johnson’s political memoir are understood to have flopped in the first few weeks with publisher HarperCollins grappling to recoup the ex-PM’s multi-million pound advance.

Unleashed, the 784-page account of Johnson’s time in Downing Street, hit the shelves at the start of the month – Europe excluded – against a backdrop of widespread criticism.

It is believed the Brexiteer PM was paid a £2 million advance to write the book, but so far it has only managed to sell 42,528 copies, far fewer than his publishers, HarperCollins, had likely predicted.

The former prime minister suffered a 62 per cent reduction in his sales lead this week, narrowly managing to cling onto the number one spot, selling just 133 more copies than Tim Spector’s The Food for Life Cookbook.

But slow sales ever since have reportedly left shops with “piles and piles” of copies, with Marina Hyde of The Rest Is Entertainment podcast saying one mega central Waterstones told her they shifted two copies yesterday.

Speaking on the podcast, her co-host Richard Osman said: “Well, we said last week that Blair sold 92,000, Thatcher sold 120,000, that Mr Johnson had had a £2m advance, so he would need to sell probably nearer that Thatcher figure.

“HarperCollins thought he was going to do Prince Harry numbers, and he [Harry] sold 450,000 in his first week, and he [Mr Johnson] sold 42,000, which is so far below any of the expectations they would have had. They have overpaid massively.”

“Talking to certain booksellers, there is a lot of stock in the shops. One of the things you do [is] you send out a lot of stock. If you’ve got a book you think is going to sell a lot, you send out a lot and there are piles and piles of that book in different bookshops around the country.”

He added: “A lot of people would kill for 42,000 books, but [it’s] almost impossible not to sell that many when he’s had that many free adverts on things and he’s very, very famous. But yeah, that’s the Christmas bonuses at HarperCollins gone.”

Jack Peat

Jack is a business and economics journalist and the founder of The London Economic (TLE). He has contributed articles to VICE, Huffington Post and Independent and is a published author. Jack read History at the University of Wales, Bangor and has a Masters in Journalism from the University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne.