\n<\/p>\n
Britney Spears\u2019s much-anticipated memoir, \u201cThe Woman in Me,\u201d sold 1.1 million copies in all formats in the United States in its first week on sale, the book\u2019s publisher, Gallery Books, announced on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
The early sales number puts Spears\u2019s book in the ballpark of some of the best-selling celebrity memoirs in recent years. In the same time frame, Prince Harry\u2019s memoir sold 1.6 million copies in the United States, while that of Mary Trump<\/a>, former president Donald J. Trump\u2019s niece, sold 1.4 million when it debuted in 2020.<\/a><\/p>\n Spears and her team took an atypical approach toward promoting the book<\/a>, in which Spears recalls her rise to fame as a teenage pop sensation, followed by her years spent in a strictly controlled conservatorship. Unlike Prince Harry, who participated in a series of high-profile interviews to promote his book\u2019s release \u2014 including appearances on \u201c60 Minutes\u201d and \u201cThe Late Show With Stephen Colbert\u201d \u2014 Spears did not do any face-to-face interviews. She instead provided People magazine with sneak-peek excerpts and emailed quotes and promoted the book online to her millions of social media followers.<\/p>\n As has been the case with other recent big sellers, the 1.1 million sales figure for Spears\u2019s memoir included purchases of the audiobook. It was read by the actress Michelle Williams, though Spears herself read a short introduction.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n A news release from Gallery Books, an imprint of Simon & Schuster, announcing the sales numbers quoted Spears as saying, \u201cI poured my heart and soul into my memoir, and I am grateful to my fans and readers around the world for their unwavering support.\u201d<\/p>\n (Published figures put the price tag for Spears\u2019s memoir between $12.5 million<\/a> and $15 million<\/a>.)<\/p>\n In its 275 pages<\/a>, \u201cThe Woman in Me\u201d includes Spears\u2019s recollections of her childhood growing up in the small Louisiana town of Kentwood, her early years on \u201cThe Mickey Mouse Club\u201d and her hard work in the recording studio to produce her first album after landing a record deal at 15 years old. Its most talked-about revelations center on her relationship with Justin Timberlake \u2014 during which, she writes, she got an abortion after he said they were too young to be parents. The book frequently returns to the challenges of living under intense public scrutiny, particularly when it came to her body, her sexuality, her relationships and her parenting of her two sons.<\/p>\n The book is Spears\u2019s first full account of her 13 years under a conservatorship, which her father, James P. Spears, was granted in 2008 amid a custody battle and Britney Spears\u2019s series of public struggles. A judge terminated the legal arrangement in 2021. In the memoir, Spears describes an adulthood in which security personnel dispensed her medications and put parental controls on her iPhone.<\/p>\n Kristen McLean, an industry analyst for Circana BookScan, which tracks book sales numbers, said on Wednesday that Spears\u2019s memoir seemed as though it had a good chance of surpassing one million in print sales in the United States this year. Only one adult nonfiction title \u2014 Prince Harry\u2019s \u201cSpare\u201d \u2014 has reached that height so far.<\/p>\n McLean said the success of Spears\u2019s book was a strong indicator for a robust holiday book market, driven in part by a string of popular nonfiction titles including Walter Isaacson\u2019s biography of Elon Musk<\/a>, Michael Lewis\u2019s book<\/a> about the FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried and Jada Pinkett Smith\u2019s memoir<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \u201cIt feels like the adult nonfiction market is waking up,\u201d McLean said.<\/p>\n Elizabeth A. Harris contributed reporting.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n