Why an historic Winchester bookshop isn't selling Prince Harry's memoir 'Spare'

The man who runs an historic bookshop in Winchester in Hampshire has revealed the reasons why they won't be selling Prince Harry's new book, 'Spare.'

Harry's book was released yesterday (Tuesday 10 January) and makes a series of damaging allegations about the Royal Family.

P&G Wells Booksellers and Stationers in College Street in Winchester confirmed it won't be stocking the controversial memoir as it hasn't seen any demand for it.

Managing Director Steve Scholey said: "We would normally take pre-orders for a book like this, and we haven't had any at all.

"In fact we've had customers coming in, saying 'I do hope you're not going to be stocking it.'

• Managing Director of P&G Wells Booksellers and Stationers Steve Scholey

"We've seen that a lot of the chain and online retailers are going to be promoting this book at half price, even on the launch day.

"As an independent bookshop we can't compete with that, and we don't try to.

"One of the joys of being an independent bookshop is that we can choose which books we would like to stock, and with something like this, we would consider that quite carefully based on how well we thought it would sell.

"Our key aim is to pay out staff and pay the gas bill, so if we don't think it will help with that, we can choose not to stock it."

The bookshop has been selling books from its store near the Cathedral since 1729.

Staff say they are proud to be independent and able to choose the books they'd like to stock.

On why he thinks people aren't asking for the book, Mr Scholey added: "I've seen from YouGov that 80% of the population isn't interested in this, so in some ways it is a book that is of minority interest.

"From what I've seen of the sales figures, even those that say they might be interested, very few as a percentage have actually bought it."