Median earnings from self-employed writers in 2006: £12,330¹
Median earnings from self-employed writers in 2022: £7,000²
Alleged advance sum paid to Prince Harry for Spare: $20,000,000³
Alleged sum ghostwriter J.R. Moehringer was paid to write Spare: £1,000,000⁴
Profession of Moehringer's wife, Shannon Welch: editorial director, Penguin Random House⁵
Publisher of Spare: Penguin Random House
Number of copies sold annually by Penguin Random House: 600,000,000⁶
Revenue generated by Penguin Random House by global annual sales: $4,700,000,000⁷
Commercial market share of Penguin Random House would have had if it had merged with Simon & Schuster: 49%⁸
Estimated amount the merger's failure cost PRH: $250,000,000⁹
Annual cost of the Royal Family to the UK taxpayers: £104,000,000¹⁰
Estimated additional cost of hosting the coronation of King Charles III: £100,000,000
Portion of UK children living in poverty: 1 in 4¹¹
Estimated value of the Royal Family's jewellery collection: £533,000,000¹²
Number of people in the UK using food banks in 2022: 2,173,158¹³
1. UK Authors’ Licensing and Collecting Society (ALCS). 2. ibid. 3. New York Post. 4. ibid. 5. Linkedin. 6. Wordsrated, 2021. 7. ibid. 8. US Justice Department. 9. Financial Times. 10. Accounts for the Sovereign Grant, which funds the Monarchy’s official expenses, June 2022. 11. 2023 UK Poverty report by Joseph Rowntree Foundation. 12. Guardian investigation, “Cost of the crown”. 13. Statista.
Number of students who studied English Literature at university in 2012: 10,740¹
Number who did so in 2021: 7,045²
Students who choose their university course to "get on the career ladder": 53%³
Impact studying economics has on earnings for men by age 29, compared to those without higher education: +33%⁴
Of those studying creative arts: -14%⁵
Cost to the student per contact hour in 2003: £2.73
Cost to the student per contact hour in 2023: £23
Number of the top ten British publishing houses whose head offices are not in London: 2
Number of the top ten British publishing houses whose head offices are not in the Home Counties: 0
Average starting salary in UK publishing: £23,314⁶
Average annual asking rent in London: £30,012⁷
1. UCAS. 2. ibid. 3. Higher Education Policy Institute. 4. 2017 Student Academic Experience Survey by Higher Education Policy Institute & Higher Education Academy. 5. Institute for Fiscal Studies. 6. Average salary for an editorial assistant, 2023, Indeed.com. 7. RightMove Rental Trends Tracker
Books published in the UK and US between 1950-2018 written by white people: 95%¹
People of colour in CEO roles in the US “Big Five” publishing houses: 0
People of colour in CEO roles in the UK “Big Five” publishing houses: 0
Percentage increase in sales of Robin DiAngelo’s White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism in the weeks after George Floyd died: 2,264%²
Number of sales of Candace Owens’ Blackout: How Black America Can Make Its Second Escape from the Democrat Plantation in 2021: 480,000³
Portion of fiction books bought by women: 4/5⁴
Number of Young Adult books sold in the US in 2021: 10,000,000⁵
Percentage of YA readers who are adults: 55%⁶
Sales of the Bible January-September 2022: 5,000,000⁷
Sales of the author Colleen Hoover’s books January-September 2022: 7,400,000⁸
Americans aged 18-29 who have read a book in the past year: 83%⁹
Americans aged 65+ who have read a book in the past year: 68%¹⁰
UK children who say they enjoy reading: 47%¹¹
UK children who read to “feel better”: 23.4%¹²
UK children who use social media to “feel better”: 38%¹³
1. Wordsrated.com. 2. Data provided to Forbes by NPD BookScan. 3. The New York Times. 4. TonerBuzz.com 5. NPD Group. 6. Publisher’s Weekly. 7. NPD BookScan. 8. Statista. 9. ibid. 10. ibid. 11. Literacy Trust. 12. Statista. 13. ibid.
Factor by which freight shipping to the UK has increased since 2012: 4
Increase in price of UK paperback books since 2019: 8.8%¹
Tonnes of paper taken off the market by plant closures 2018-2022: 6,000,000²
Percentage of the global timber trade produced by Russia, Belarus and Ukraine: 25%
Length of the 2022 Paperiliitto strike: 112 days³
Amount it cost timber company UPM: €180-220,000,000⁴
Amount of British timber that is used for paper manufacture: 3.6%⁵
Increase in timber price 2021-22: 34.5%⁶
Increase in costs of toilet-roll manufacture: 144%⁷
Reduction in the length of toilet-roll: 8%⁸
1. Publishers Weekly. 2. PrintWeek. 3. ibid. 4. ibid. 5. Forest Research. 6. IBISWorld. 7. Analysis for The Telegraph by Trolley.co.uk. 8. ibid.