Today (January 10) is the official publication date for Prince Harry’s memoir, Spare, and while some independent bookshops in south east London have begun to make their sales, others won’t be doing at all.

With the title ranking at number four in the Amazon book charts, it’s already garnering a lot of attention.

We spoke to a number of independent bookshops around south east London to find out whether they’d made any sales on the infamous book so far.

Some are stocking it, others are waiting for demand, and some worry the competition with larger retailers is too high.

The Beckenham Bookshop in Beckenham High Street said it had already received some interest from customers who had pre-ordered the title before its release.

The shop hasn’t had any physical sales as yet, only pre-orders, but has ordered some copies to have in stock.

Another bookshop in south east London, who didn’t want to be named, said that their shelves were empty of Prince Harry’s new memoir this morning and would remain so unless there was customer demand for it.

They said they wouldn’t be stocking the title due to a worry for a lack of interest from customers in the area, but if there is demand, they would be happy to stock it.

For The Word Bookshop in New Cross, there is worry that smaller businesses will be overshadowed by larger companies that offer more competitive prices.

They said that they had ordered the book, but addressed concerns towards buying high volumes of books due to competition from online retailers and large franchises.

A spokesperson for The Word Bookshop said: “We have ordered six copies for the shop and we are hoping for some sales.

“We haven’t yet received our order, but to be honest it’s difficult for local bookshops because online retailers and book companies can buy in bulk and sell their books for  half price and we just can’t compete with that.”

At other bookshops, sales were already being made this morning - with more expected to be made.

Kirkdale Bookshop in Sydenham said that they had already had a number of pre-orders for the book and were anticipating more sales.

A spokesperson said: “We’ve had five pre-orders and have ordered copies to sell.

“A customer is actually buying one as we speak.”

At Dulwich Books, a small order has been made for the book – with more demand anticipated.

A spokesperson for Dulwich Books said: “We haven’t ordered a huge quantity, but we have ordered books to stock in the shop and for customer pre-orders.

“We expect to sell more and already we’ve had more orders than we anticipated.

“So far we’ve had seven customer pre-orders for the title in the lead up to its release.”