The strategy behind Spare, Prince Harry’s tell-all memoir that is set to break the internet

There is a scene in the Netflix documentary, Harry & Meghan – a piece of reality TV which bends distinctly towards the reality of the famed and controversial Sussexes – where the viewer is let into the inner sanctum of H and M, as they call each other throughout.

It is not the bedroom; it is the couple’s study, the engine room of their enormous, beautifully landscaped $15 million Montecito mansion, and the seat of their new multimedia empire.

Harry & Meghan: a piece of reality TV which bends distinctly towards the reality of the famed and controversial Sussexes.Credit: Netflix

Far from needing a writerly room of one’s own, Prince Harry, whose memoir, Spare, is published globally by Penguin Random House on Tuesday, evidently prefers to work right alongside his wife.

Two throne-like chairs, imprinted with the first initial of their owner, stand paired at a blonde-wood writer’s table, which is accessorised with white roses, curated coffee-table books and Californian light.

There, at their laptops, H and M work side by side. It’s them on one side of the desk, and everyone else on the other.

J.R. Moehringer ghost-wrote The Spare.Credit: AP

Is this where Harry penned his memoir? Not quite.

Harry did not write the book, exactly – it was ghostwritten by American journalist-turned-author J.R. Moehringer, whom the couple are said to have met through their mutual friends, the Clooneys.

Moehringer is a Pulitzer prize-winning journalist and his 2005 memoir, The Tender Bar, was adapted into a 2021 film directed by George Clooney and starring Ben Affleck. He also ghost-wrote Andre Agassi’s acclaimed autobiography.

The interview sessions between subject and writer must have been long – Spare is not spare in length: it is reportedly 416 pages.

It will be translated into 16 different languages and the audiobook version is read by the prince himself.

It promises to be a global bestseller, and the next sally in the highly strategic public relations campaign Harry and Meghan have forged since quitting the royal family, almost three years ago to the day of the book’s publication.

“The public relations strategy from Harry and Meghan’s point of view is to set up their shop for the future,” says Juliet Rieden, the royal correspondent and editor-at-large for the Australian Women’s Weekly.

“They want to be humanitarian activists. They need to get out there and tell the public what went wrong with their last job, and they want people to understand who they are and what they stand for.

“The backlash is that many people don’t like what they see, especially in the UK, but their work is in America. That is the focus.”

Having cut themselves off from royal money, the Sussexes are self-funding their one-percenter lifestyle.

Meghan and Harry want to be activists.Credit: Getty

The book, for which Harry received a reported $US20 million ($29 million) advance, brings necessary income. Of the advance, Harry has donated $US1.5 million to Sentebale, a children’s charity he co-founded in Lesotho and Botswana; and £300,000 ($528,000) to British charity WellChild, of which he is royal patron.

Spare is more than a commercial venture.Credit:

But Spare is more than just a commercial venture – the book will help establish the Sussexes in the celebrity-progressive-activist star-scape of the United States, the world’s biggest media market and the best launchpad for the social activism the Sussexes want to pursue.

Penguin Random House says the book will cover, with “raw, unflinching honesty”, Harry’s whole life in the public eye – from childhood to the present day, including his “dedication to service, the military duty that twice took him to the front lines of Afghanistan, and the joy he has found in being a husband and father”.

Early leaks from the book include the shocking revelation that William physically attacked his brother in 2019, after the elder brother called Harry’s new wife “rude”, “difficult” and “abrasive”, and the claim that it was William and his wife, Catherine, who encouraged Harry to wear the infamous Nazi costume to a party in 2005 because they thought it was funny.

The market for the memoir is huge, according to Rieden.

“Everybody is interested. People want to know what went on, even if they pretend they don’t,” she says. “The Sussexes have definitely pushed more important things off the front page, with gossiping and family drama.”

The story, or stories, of Harry and Meghan are undoubtedly popular – their TV series was the most-watched Netflix non-fiction debut ever.

As well as a four-book publishing deal, of which Harry’s memoir is book No.2 (in 2021, Meghan published a New York Times bestselling children’s picture book, The Bench), the couple also have a multi-year Netflix deal estimated to be worth between $US100 million and $US150 million, and a three-year Spotify podcast deal estimated to be worth between $US15 million and $US25 million. They are also signed to a superstar speakers’ agency.

These deals provide necessary private income, but they also help fund the activism/humanitarian branch of Team Sussex, the Archewell Foundation.

The foundation is run through Archewell, the umbrella organisation for all the team Sussex projects, commercial and non-commercial.

Tim Powell, the chief public relations officer for Dentsu Creative ANZ, says Harry’s book is about “filling that content machine”.

That means exploiting the institution of which the couple is so fiercely critical.

“The commerciality of what they’re trying to do is driving them to chafe against the royal family,” Powell says.

“The reveals about ‘my brother shouted at me’, and the racism allegations, are probably heartfelt but it also feels cynical because if you want to launch a book or a podcast, you need some tension and conflict.”

The book’s title is a reference to Harry’s inferior position in the line of royal succession, and advance publicity has focused on Harry’s conflict with his brother, Prince William, the next king.

In clips from the upcoming interviews, Harry also delivers more broadsides at the “they” he consistently referred to in the Sussexes’ Netflix film.

He is apparently referring to palace officials, although it is unclear.

Harry has clearly learnt a thing or two from the royal family communications teams, and his own dealings with the media.

Powell says Team Sussex is a “very sophisticated operation”, which employs highly experienced content-producers, digital strategists and social media consultants, most of them Americans with intimate familiarity with the US market.

They are cleverly building their own media empire – with publishing and audio arms – so they don’t have to rely on traditional media to moderate their content.

“They are not making any PR mistakes,” Powell says. “The question is, how long can they keep going on this path? They probably have another year of this, and they will have to pivot.

“They will need a new narrative to keep getting book deals and so on.”

Harry has done several interviews to promote his book, small excerpts from which were released online this week.

One is with the famous US journalist, Anderson Cooper, CNN network’s star reporter.

Cooper is American royalty – his mother, Gloria, was an heiress of the storied Vanderbilt family, and, according to historical gossip, his great-aunt, Thelma Furness, had an affair with Harry’s great-great-uncle, Edward VIII, when he was Prince of Wales.

In a clip from the interview, Harry tells Cooper that “there becomes a point when silence is betrayal”.

Another of Harry’s pre-publication interviews is in the tougher British market, where sympathy for the Sussexes competes with bone-deep loyalty to the royal family. It is with ITV’s Tom Bradby, a friend of both Harry and William.

“It never needed to be this way,” Harry tells Bradby in the trailer for the 90-minute special. “I want a family, not an institution … they’ve shown absolutely no willingness to reconcile.”

Somewhat contrarily, given he is criticising them to a global audience, Harry also expressed a wish to make up with his family.

“I would like to get my father back. I would like to have my brother back,” he says.

Powell says that while it is obvious that Harry feels genuinely aggrieved, from a strategic point of view, it is optimal for the Sussexes to talk about the royals while the rift is still fresh, and interest in the monarchy is still strong.

This may not always be the case, and there is much less general interest in the royals in the all-important US market.

Says Powell: “The Sussexes are pretty small fry in the States. Meghan’s Insta following is much less than say, Beyonce or the Kardashians.”

As the death of Queen Elizabeth II fades into the past, interest in the royal family will taper off, Powell believes, especially as “the new king is not very charismatic”.

Prince George and his siblings are going to grow up and take the limelight off Harry and Meghan.Credit: AP

“Harry is interesting now but in the future, he will be a balding dad with kids, and younger royals like George and his siblings will get older and have girlfriends and boyfriends, and be of more interest to the media,” he says.

”Tittle-tattle about the brutality of the palace media machine will run out of steam and Harry and Meghan risk being seen as indulgent pampered celebrities.“

Harry’s memoir will greatly help the Sussexes build their global media brand, which they could leverage to work for their chosen causes – anti-racism, mental health and Harry’s beloved Invictus Games, which will take place in Germany in September, and which are the subject of the Sussexes’ next Netflix series, Heart of Invictus.

But charity work doesn’t pay the bills.

Prince Harry and Meghan, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex at the WellChild Awards in 2018: charity doesn’t pay the bills.Credit: AP

“Meghan has been consistent on her anti-racism campaigning, but it’s not very commercially rewarding,” says Powell.

“Activism is genuine hard work and dedication. They can lend their names to things, but that’s not going to put $5 million to $7 million per year on the table to fund their lifestyle.”

Powell also questions Harry’s “cultural authority” in the US.

As a middle-aged, privileged white man who represents an institution inextricably linked to colonialism, he is not best-placed to speak on issues of diversity, anti-racism or disadvantage.

Meghan, of course, has far greater cultural authority, which she will stand her in good stead if she releases her own memoir, as is speculated – the Sussexes still have to deliver two more books under their publishing contract.

But, says Rieden, the window for more Sussex stories is limited.

“A lot of people want them to stop with the personal stuff and get on with Archewell, their activist humanitarian work,” she says.

“They have a lot of potential to make a difference there, and that work has been put aside for all of this.

“They’ve got the name and the platform for it in America, definitely. They can do some great things.”

And if that fails, Meghan, a former star of the television legal drama, Suits, can always return to acting.

Says Rieden: “I can’t imagine she would find it difficult to get a job.”

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