Meghan Markle biographer's big gamble backfires

• Meghan and Harry's biographer saw his latest venture crash
  

Journalist and author Omid Scobie's latest literary venture has backfired, leaving him reeling.

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's biogrpher penned Royal Spin alongside American young adult author Robin Benway.

The novel, which marks his third book on royal matters and represents his debut in fiction writing, follows an American woman who leaves her position at the White House to take up a role at the British monarch's office, Buckingham Palace.

The book, which hit the shelfs in British bookshops last month, has struggled considerably in Amazon's sales rankings across both British and American markets.

The authore, once hailed as Meghan's trusted voice, failed to achieve the desired resuts with his latest venture.

The hardcover edition currently sits at 44,059th place in Amazon UK's overall Books category, while also ranking 8,667th in Contemporary Romance and 3,486th in Romantic Comedy.

The Kindle version fares little better, positioned at 34,969th in the Kindle Store and 6,965th in Teen & Young Adult. Notably, the paperback edition displays no rankings whatsoever on the British platform.

Royal fans reacted to the book's performance, with one user questioning whether the figures spelt trouble for Scobie.

They continued, the book "didn't even make the Top 5,000 list of all paid books for Kindle, nor did it make the Top 50,000 for hardcover, nor the Top 500,000 for paperback."

Another commenter observed they had not encountered "a single person on BookTok talk about it, and these days that's how you get a best seller it seems."

Scobie announced the project last month, writing on X: "Very happy to share that the TV adaptation of Royal Spin which I have been developing with our genius showrunner and writer Emily Fox, and Universal Television has a US home at NBC's @Peacock!"

On the other hand, Universal Television is producing the series, with Mr Scobie attached as writer, co-creator and executive producer.