Philip Stone introduces the fourth biggest genre for the trade—one full of celebrity and misery
Behind fiction, children’s and travel,
biography/memoir is the biggest
genre in the UK book trade—a fact
not altogther unbelievable when you
look at a list of some of the biggest
successes in the publishing world
in recent years: Peter Kay, Richard
Hammond, Russell Brand and Katie
Price. And then there’s the birth
and fruition of the misery memoir
sub-genre, in which publishers are
increasingly keen to sub-divide even
further, based on the particular “misery”
being emotionally discussed.
But despite the chart-topping successes
of Richard Hammond’s On the
Edge (Weidenfeld), Russell Brand’s
My Booky Wook (Hodder) and Sir
Bobby Charlton’s My Manchester
United Years (Headline), which were
all picked as bestsellers by our previewer
Guy Raphael this time last
year incidentally, the genre finished
2007 2.4% down in revenue terms
year-on-year—the first time Nielsen
BookScan’s “Biographies and Autobiographies”
product class showed
a decline since the Total Consumer
Market was born in 1998.
Thanks to comedian Peter Kay’s
The Sound of Laughter (Century) shifting
close to 800,000 copies through
the market in 2006, in hardback, the
biography genre had a bumper year
with total sales of £148.8m—5.8% of
that figure provided by Kay alone.
Last year, Hammond was the biggest
seller in revenue terms, contributing
£5.4m (3.7%) to the genre total of
£145.2m.
Through the first 24 weeks of
2008, the category finds itself down
once more with revenue totalling
£40m, a 6.4% decline year-on-year
according to BookScan data. By
August last year, 12 books from the
genre, led by Bill Bryson’s The Life
and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid
(Black Swan) and Toni Maguire’s
Don’t Tell Mummy (Harper Element)
had taken more than £500,000
through the TCM, but only five have
managed to do it in 2008.
Topping that list is Katie Price,
whose Pushed to the Limit (Century)
has sold more than 200,000
copies through the market thus far
this year. For a third instalment, its
£2.3m worth of sales is a phenomenal
achievement, and takes the total
sales of all her memoirs to just under
1.5 million with almost £13.4m spent
on the three books.
CATEGORY PREVIEW: BIOGRAPHIES & MEMOIRS
Worth and Price push memoirs to the limit
TOP 20 HARDBACK BIOGRAPHIES/MEMOIRS (YEAR TO 2ND AUGUST)
Pos Title Author Publisher ISBN Pub date RRP ASP Total
1 Pushed to the Limit Price, Katie Century 9781846052392 Feb 08 £18.99 £10.69 214,221
2 My Booky Wook Brand, Russell Hodder & Stoughton 9780340936153 Nov 07 £18.99 £10.39 73,040
3 Anything Goes Barrowman, John Michael O’Mara 9781843172895 Jan 08 £18.99 £13.02 36,298
4 On the Edge Hammond, Richard Weidenfeld 9780297853275 Sep 07 £18.99 £10.16 35,821
5 Westlife: Our Story Westlife HarperCollins 9780007288120 Jun 08 £18.99 £11.90 31,347
6 Beyond Ugly Briscoe, Constance Hodder & Stoughton 9780340933237 Jan 08 £14.99 £10.54 29,370
7 Spilling the Beans Wright, Clarissa D Hodder & Stoughton 9780340933886 Sep 07 £18.99 £13.05 20,921
8 Speaking for Myself Blair, Cherie Little, Brown 9781408700983 May 08 £18.99 £12.25 20,618
9 Broken Keenan, Shy Hodder & Stoughton 9780340937426 Feb 08 £12.99 £9.27 20,435
10 My Bump and Me Klass, Myleene Virgin 9781905264247 Feb 08 £14.99 £11.38 17,833
11 Life with My Sister Madonna Ciccone, Christopher Simon & Schuster 9781847374387 Jul 08 £17.99 £10.73 14,573
12 It’s in the Blood Dallaglio, Lawrence Headline 9780755315734 Nov 07 £18.99 £11.38 14,127
13 Finding My Voice Watson, Russell Ebury 9780091922917 Jun 08 £18.99 £12.76 14,084
14 Playing with Fire Ramsay, Gordon Harper 9780007259892 Oct 07 £18.99 £10.59 13,986
15 Miracles of Life Ballard, J G Fourth Estate 9780007270729 Feb 08 £14.99 £12.17 13,429
16 The Autobiography Clapton, Eric Century 9781846051609 Oct 07 £20.00 £11.04 13,320
17 Somme Mud Lynch, E P F Doubleday 9780385612784 Feb 08 £17.99 £10.93 13,205
18 Ronnie Wood, Ronnie Macmillan 9780230701311 Oct 07 £20.00 £11.67 11,991
19 Daddy’s Little Earner Landon, Maria Harper Element 9780007268757 Jan 08 £12.99 £9.37 11,936
20 My Manchester United Years Charlton, Sir Bobby Headline 9780755316199 Sep 07 £20.00 £11.80 11,806
Source: Nielsen BookScan Total Consumer Market
TOP 20 PAPERBACK BIOGRAPHIES/MEMOIRS (YEAR TO 2ND AUGUST)
Pos Title Author Publisher ISBN Pub date RRP ASP Total
1 Call the Midwife Worth, Jennifer Phoenix 9780753823835 Mar 08 £6.99 £4.47 170,894
2 Shakespeare: The World as a Stage Bryson, Bill HarperPerennial 9780007197903 Apr 08 £7.99 £5.71 167,542
3 Not without My Sister Jones, Kristina et al Harper Element 9780007248070 Jan 08 £6.99 £4.47 146,709
4 Sniper One Mills, Dan Penguin 9780141029016 May 08 £6.99 £4.50 117,233
5 Tell Me Why, Mummy Thomas, David Harper Element 9780007256372 Feb 08 £6.99 £4.31 105,796
6 On the Edge Hammond, Richard Phoenix 9780753824047 May 08 £7.99 £4.65 104,567
7 My Booky Wook Brand, Russell Hodder 9780340936177 Jul 08 £7.99 £4.75 90,930
8 Welcome to My World McLoughlin, Coleen Harper 9780007255429 Feb 08 £7.99 £4.69 86,936
9 Silent Boy Hayden, Torey Harper Element 9780007258819 Apr 08 £6.99 £4.10 79,145
10 Deliver Me from Evil Gilbert, Alloma Pan Books 9780330457316 Mar 08 £6.99 £3.64 77,655
11 If I am Missing or Dead Latus, Janine Arrow 9780099499596 Jan 08 £6.99 £4.25 76,863
12 Hidden Glass, Cathy Harper Element 9780007260980 Mar 08 £6.99 £4.06 69,510
13 Playing with Fire Ramsay, Gordon Harper 9780007259885 May 08 £7.99 £5.05 55,821
14 Daddy’s Little Earner Landon, Maria Harper Element 9780007268771 Jun 08 £6.99 £4.60 51,098
15 The Audacity of Hope Obama, Barack Canongate 9781847670830 Feb 08 £8.99 £7.74 51,086
16 From Baghdad, with Love Kopelman, J/Roth, M Bantam 9780553818857 May 08 £7.99 £4.25 50,677
17 When Daddy Comes Home Maguire, Toni Harper Element 9780007244003 Dec 07 £6.99 £4.57 44,128
18 Eight Lives Down Hunter, Chris Corgi 9780552155717 May 08 £6.99 £4.37 43,881
19 The Last Fighting Tommy Patch, H/Emden, R Van Bloomsbury 9780747593362 Jun 08 £7.99 £5.03 43,644
20 My Manchester United Years Charlton, Sir Bobby Headline 9780755316205 May 08 £7.99 £4.76 41,786
Charts may contain titles outside of the BookScan Biography/Memoir product class
Thanks in particular to some heavy
discounting in the January sales, Russell
Brand’s My Booky Wook (Hodder),
Hammond’s On the Edge, and Clarissa
Dickson Wright’s Spilling the Beans
(Hodder) all chart in the top 10 within
the hardback chart (above).
A smoothly run publicity tour of
the UK by Michael O’Mara, and a
huge profile via “Dr Who” spin-off
“Torchwood” and his judgements on
“I’d Do Anything” helped John Barrowman’s
Anything Goes into the top
three, with 2008 releases Westlife:
Our Story and Constance Briscoe’s
long-awaited follow-up to Ugly—
Beyond Ugly (Hodder)—nestling
just outside the top five.
Within the paperback chart,
a slice of social history in Jennifer
Worth’s Call the Midwife (Phoenix)
has proved the most popular mem-
www.thebookseller.com The Bookseller | 15 August 2008 29
Big sales for Katie
Price top and
Jennifer Worth
oir of the year thus far, amassing
sales of more than 170,000 units.
Bill Bryson’s biography of the bard,
Shakespeare: The World as a Stage
(HarperPerennial) sits second, having
sold close to 170,000 copies in little
over three months on sale.
Father’s Day, one of the biggest
events in the bookselling calendar,
is responsible for numerous chart
positions in the paperback list—
Hammond’s On the Edge, Sir Bobby
Charlton’s My Manchester United
Years (Headline) and Sergeant Dan
Mills’ Sniper One (Penguin) in particular.
Although they may have
proved ideal books for dads in hardback
over Christmas, come June
their well-timed paperback releases
prove just as enticing. Meanwhile,
eight mis-mems make the paperback
list, with total sales of 605,904.
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