The Royal British Legion will be watching the sales of Tony Blair's memoir with interest. The former PM has announced that all proceeds from A Journey – his £4.6m advance, and any future royalties once this has been recouped – will go to the charity.
Political memoirs don't always produce sales to match their huge advances: Blair's will have to shift more than a million copies for Random House to see a return on its investment (not that there's any likelihood of the publisher asking for its money back). They will often recoup a large proportion through a lucrative serialisation deals with a newspaper: Edwina Currie's diaries, scandalous revelations and all, might not have sold many copies, but a reported serial of around £150,000 was a welcome bonus. More recently, Peter Mandelson was reported to have landed a whopping £350,000 from the Times.
Blair and his publishers aren't going down that route. It could just turn out to be the right approach; publishing sources say the days of frenzied bidding wars are over. And if readers haven't read all the juiciest bits pre-publication, they might be more likely to buy the book.
The cost of memories
Author: Tony Blair
Title: A Journey
Estimated advance: £4,600,000
Sales value: Not yet published
Author: Alastair Campbell
Title: The Blair Years & Diaries Volume One
Estimated advance: £800,000
Sales value: £1,944,428
Author: David Blunkett
Title: The Blunkett Tapes: My Life in the Bear Pit
Estimated advance: £400,000
Sales value: £79,656
Author: Mo Mowlam
Title: Momentum: The Struggle for Peace, Politics and the People
Estimated advance: £300,000
Sales value: £463,688
Author: Edwina Currie
Title: Diaries 1987-1992
Estimated advance: £300,000 for two books
Sales value: £129,277
Author: Peter Mandelson
Title: The Third Man
Estimated advance: £150,000
Sales value: £719,181
Author: Alan Clark
Title: Diaries: In Power
Estimated advance: £150,000
Sales value: £672,343
Author: Douglas Hurd
Title: Memoirs
Estimated advance: £100,000 for two books
Sales value: £193,364
Sales details from Nielsen BookScan
