Stephenie Meyer breaks into the UK market, while a plethora of
new titles resuscitates a stagnant market, reports Philip Stone
Children demand Meyer
After week upon week of figures in the
red, an embarrassment of new title
riches had customers reaching deep
into their pockets last week, injecting
some life into the book market after
months of gloom. Nearly £31m was
spent through Nielsen BookScan’s
Total Consumer Market during the
seven days to 9th August—a 20-week
high—with year-on-year growth at
4.8%—the strongest since April.
The biggest contributor to the
trade-pleasing figure is American
author Stephenie Meyer, whose
Breaking Dawn (Atom) sold 32,452
copies through the market last week.
Almost a penny in every pound spent
through the TCM went towards a
copy of the fourth book in Meyer’s
teen vampire series, Twilight. Across
the Atlantic, Meyer’s countrymen
and women snapped up almost
824,732 copies in its first two days on
sale, according to BookScan US data.
Despite being unable to supplant
Linwood Barclay’s No Time for
Goodbye (Orion) from top spot, which
experienced a 13% decline in sales
week-on-week, it is nonetheless a
phenomenal sale for the woman
regularly tipped as the pretender
to J K Rowling’s crown. In fact, J K
Rowling is the only author to have
experienced a stronger weekly sale
from a children’s book with a doublefigure
r.r.p. since records began, such
is the rarity of a hardback children’s
title capable of selling
into five figures.
Criminal affairs
Meyer is just
one of 13 new
entries in the
top 50 this week,
with Ian Rankin’s
Exit Music (Orion)
also entering
the top five. The
“Rebus retirement”
novel was a halfprice
“book of the
week” at Borders,
Waterstone’s and WHS last week,
helping Rankin to fourth position on
part-week sales alone.
Also new in the top 10 is former
“Richard & Judy” participant
Dorothy Koomson’s fifth novel,
Goodnight, Beautiful (Sphere), while
Tony Parsons’ My Favourite Wife
(Harper), in 12th position, was last
week’s “£2.99 if you buy the Times”
book of the week at WHS.
Toni Jordan’s Addition
(Sceptre) was the Summer Read
under the “R&J” microscope last
Wednesday, and consequently
joins the top 50 in 27th place.
However, the quirky tale’s
10,515 seven-day sale is
the lowest by an “R&J”
participant in its week under
the spotlight since Martin
Davies’ The Conjuror’s Bird
(Hodder) sold fewer than
4,000 copies during the
2006 book club. Meanwhile,
total sales across all editions of
Khaled Hosseini’s A Thousand
Splendid Suns (Bloomsbury) passed
the 900,000 mark last week.
700
600
500
400
300
200
Revenue (thousands) TOP 50 REVENUE LEADERS: W/E 09/08/08
100
0
TOP 50 ANALYSIS
HC OR HLC HEA PEN HOD CHA TW CCV PM BL LB
INDEPENDENT RETAIL TOP 20: W/E 09/08/08
Pos Title Author Publisher
1 Breaking Dawn Meyer, Stephenie Atom
2 Artemis Fowl and the Time Paradox Colfer, Eoin Puffin
3 The Road Home Tremain, Rose Vintage
4 The Ghost Harris, Robert Arrow
5 The Outcast Jones, Sadie Vintage
6 The Forgotten Garden Morton, Kate Pan
7 The Kite Runner Hosseini, Khaled Bloomsbury
8 The Careful Use of Compliments McCall Smith, A Abacus
9 The Uncommon Reader Bennett, Alan Profile
10 Katherine Swynford Weir, Alison Vintage
11 No Time for Goodbye Barclay, Linwood Orion
12 Engleby Faulks, Sebastian Vintage
13 Horrid Henry Robs the Bank Simon, Francesca Orion
14 A Thousand Splendid Suns Hosseini, Khaled Bloomsbury
15 The Official Highway Code – TSO
16 East of the Sun Gregson, Julia Orion
17 The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher Summerscale, Kate Bloomsbury
18 The Wreck of the Zanzibar Morpurgo, Michael Egmont
19 Twilight Meyer, Stephenie Atom
20 Not in the Flesh Rendell, Ruth Arrow
© Nielsen BookScan 2008. For further information on how you can access the top 100 titles
on a weekly basis, please contact Sara Mulryan at Nielsen BookScan on 01483 712229.
For more chart information, see pages 34–35
www.thebookseller.com The Bookseller | 15 August 2008 13
HC HarperCollins
OR Orion
HLC Hachette Livre Children’s
HEA Headline
PEN Penguin
HOD Hodder
CHA Random House CHA
TW Transworld
CCV Random House CCV
PM Pan Macmillan
BL Bloomsbury
LB Little, Brown
CGT Canongate
BOOK OF THE WEEK
Shack attack
on UK shores
William P Young’s selfpublished
religious novel is
set for a tough UK market
Having spent almost half a year
among the BookScan US top 100
bestsellers, William Paul Young’s
The Shack finally hit UK shores
last month in a co-venture between
original US publisher Windblown
Media and Hodder Faith.
Hodder’s initial print-run was a
reported 25,000 copies and eager
UK buyers bought a tenth of that
figure in just seven days at the end of
July. The book, a work of fiction that
confronts one of the most difficult
questions in Christianity (“Why does
God allow suffering?”), has sold
more than 750,000 copies through
BookScan’s US Consumer Market to
date (see graph below).
But in spite of its current
bestseller status, the book was
rejected by numerous
US publishers
with claims that
it was both “too
controversial”
for the Christian
marketplace and
“too Christian”.
Young, who
wrote the book
as a Christmas
gift for his
children,
enlisted the
help of Wayne
Jacobsen and Brad
Cummings, who formed Windblown
Media, and began distributing copies
from Young’s garage. Word of mouth
has arrived on UK shores and, in the
enthusiastic hands of Hodder Faith’s
publishing director, Wendy Grisham,
The Shack stands a strong chance of
cracking a traditionally tough UK
market for religious tomes.
Sales
THE SHACK: US SALES
80,000
70,000
60,000
50,000
40,000
30,000
20,000
10,000
0
7-Oct 2-Dec 27-Jan 23-Mar 18-May 13-Jul
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