Friday, November 19, 2010

HC emerges as frontrunner in Royal race

The Bookseller - 18.11.10 - Charlotte Williams

HarperCollins could become the first publisher to bring an entirely new book on the Royal engagement to market, with an initial print run of 100,000 copies set to hit booksellers on 26th November.

William and Kate: A Royal Love Story, published with the Sun, is written by the newspaper's Royal correspondent James Clench and will include 150 photographs from the Sun's Royal photographer, Arthur Edwards. The hardback is priced £14.99.

Harper non-fiction senior commissioning editor Anna Valentine said: "We're delighted to celebrate the Royal engagement with this beautifully illustrated commemorative book. Our lavishly illustrated Michael Jackson tribute book proved our swift response to the demands of the market. We are very confident that William and Kate: A Royal Love Story will be the definitive book to mark this momentous occasion."

While Mainstream's book on the bride to be, Kate Middleton: The Making of a Princess by Claudia Joseph, is published a day earlier, it is the updated paperback version of the book.

Within days of the wedding next year, Michael O'Mara will publish William and Kate: A Royal Wedding by Andrew Morton, publisher and author of bestseller Diana: Her True Story (M O'M). Price and format are still to be confirmed.

Michael O'Mara said: "I published my first royal wedding book in 1981 for the wedding of William's mother. In 1986 Michael O'Mara Books published the number one bestselling book The ITN Book of the Royal Wedding by Alastair Burnet and it was during the writing of that book that I met Andrew Morton, as we signed him up to research the background of Sarah Ferguson and Prince Andrew."

Morton said: "The delighted reaction [to the engagement] shows that the royals are truly a family with global reach, and working on this book is a hugely exciting prospect."

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