A book by a female member of the royal family sold 300,000 copies within three months of its release! Behind the Scenes of Her Imperial Highness Princess Akiko’s Hit Book on her Study at Oxford

Buzz on SNS… A book published 9 years ago is now available in paperback.

Her Imperial Highness Princess Akiko of the Prince and Princess Mikasa family studied at the University of Oxford in England for five years from 2004, where she earned her doctorate. On April 3, 2012, “Red and Blue Gowns,” a collection of essays describing her days as an exchange student, was published in paperback. As of July 11, only three months later, the book had sold 300,000 copies and was a huge bestseller. (The following quotations are from the same book.)

I am honestly surprised at the current response. It was ’09 when she finished her study abroad. In 2012, I started a series of articles in our monthly magazine “Voice,” which I compiled into a book and released in 2003. Now, it is selling like hotcakes. The number of inquiries and requests for interviews has been increasing, and I am very grateful for that.

Mr. Yushi Nakamura of PHP Research Institute, one of the editorial team that worked on the paperback edition, says excitedly, “We are very grateful for the increase in inquiries and requests for interviews.

The book, which was published nearly 10 years ago, was first brought into the library by a post on X (formerly Twitter) by a certain person.

A contributor named “Kayo-san,” who lives in Germany, captured a passage from the electronic version of “Red and Blue Gowns” and posted it on SNS with the sentence “PRINCESS PRINCESS’s daily life is too funny. It was a huge buzz.

The sales of the electronic version skyrocketed, and it became a hot topic of conversation within the editorial department. Naturally, we considered reprinting the hardcover edition. But then we discovered a problem. We had been so particular about the work, using special paper that is not often used in general books, that the paper for the text had become out of stock,” Nakamura said.

In the meantime, however, Her Imperial Highness Princess Akiko asked us about reprinting the book at …….

After careful consideration, she said, “We will change the form of the book and make it a paperback edition. If possible, we would like to publish it as one of the main works of PHP Bunko, which will celebrate its 40th anniversary in April 2012.

Her Imperial Highness Princess Akiko readily agreed. Since the author is a member of the royal family and the production period was short, a three-member team was formed for the publication of the book. We then went to Her Imperial Highness Princess Akiko for a meeting at …….

I was indeed nervous because I was meeting her for the first time. We were taken to the reception room, and all three of us stood erect and waited for His Highness,” said Mr. Nakamura.

However, when Her Imperial Highness Princess Akiko smiled and spoke to us in a friendly manner, we gradually relaxed,

I was so excited that I couldn’t help talking about what I found interesting about the book,” said Nakamura.