Spencer may have had 'relatively low' newspaper deal for Diana book serialisation
Author says Earl Spencer might not have received as much for memoir extracts as in years gone by
Charles Spencer may have received a "relatively low" payment for the newspaper serialisation of his memoir Swan Song: Diana, My Sister, a royal writer has speculated.
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Significant extracts from the book, which is released on Tuesday, have been printed in the Mail, and the claims made by Earl Spencer within it have started a war of words with the Palace.
The writer, who is the younger brother of Diana, has claimed that King Charles reacted "like a lottery winner," when his ex-wife died in 1997 and said, "we’ll forget her soon enough".
He also claimed Queen Elizabeth was considering restoring Diana's Her Royal Highness title, which she had lost after her 1996 divorce from Charles.
The Palace said in response: “The pain of fraternal grief can cloud reason, affect judgment and colour memory.”
Penguin has not said how much of an advance was paid to Earl Spencer for his tenth book, which is expected to become a best-seller, with copies having even been stolen from a lorry in the Netherlands.
The Mail published initial hints on Thursday before a much longer extract, which was put behind a paywall.
The newspaper has also not said how much was paid for the serialisation, but royal writer Alexander Larman has said that this deal is unlikely to have been lucrative for Earl Spencer.
"The sums that we are talking about are in the relatively low four figures these days, rather than a six or even seven-figure bonanza," he wrote in a Telegraph column.
He added that he would be "surprised" if the Mail paid him "anything like the amount that he would have received twenty or so years ago".
Recent high-profile book advances include the £510,000 Boris Johnson was paid for his autobiography Unleashed, David Cameron took home an £800,000 advance for his memoir For the Record, and Tony Blair received £4.6m for his book A Journey.