DATA


The Bestseller Charts Analysis


The highest new entry in non-fiction, albeit in a relatively slow publication week, was Sathnam Sanghera’s much- praised Empireworld, which débuted at 37th overall and 10th in Hardback Non-fiction. The historian’s latest look at imperial- ism is a follow-up to Empireland, which won the 2022 British Book Award for Narrative Non-Fiction; it also re-entered the Paperback Non-fiction charts last week.


Publisher revenues Penguin


HarperCollins Pan Macmillan Bloomsbury Ebury


Little, Brown Hodder S&S


Transworld Bonnier


Children’s: Pre-school Title


1 Etch Art Creations Squish... 2 The Baddies


3 The Very Hungry Caterpillar 4 Bluey: I Love My Family 5 Dormouse Has a Cold 6 On the Farm   


    


7 My Big Rainbow Book of... 8 Peppa’s Great Dinosaur Hunt 9 Tabby McTat 10Rabbit’s Nap 11Dear Zoo


12Bumper Animal Colouring Book - 13Guess How Much I Love You 14That’s Not My Dog‥ 15Peekaboo Love  


   


16The Smeds and the Smoos 17The Tiger Who Came to Tea 18Zog


19Superworm 


20Kaleidoscope Sticker Colouring -


£1.63m £1.12m £1.02m £634k £625k £551k £549k £483k £346k £329k


The overall Children’s chart had a new king, with Diper Överlöde earning Wimpy Kid creator Jeff Kinney his 92nd Children’s pole position, as the paperback leapfrogged the previous week’s subscription-boosted number one, Allison Saſt’s A Fragile Enchantment. Saſt’s YA fantasy romance sold 76 units in the week aſter its subscription leg-up, aſter its exclusive edition shiſted 11,800 copies in the previous week.


Backlist rules in the early readers market, but frontlist wins in novelty


Zoe Knowles


Author; Illustrator -


Imprint Hinkler


Puffin Ladybird


ISBN (+978) ASP Volume 9781488940385 £4.49


Julia Donaldson; Axel Scheffler Alison Green 9780702325069 £4.87 Eric Carle -


Julia Donaldson; Axel Scheffler Macmillan Axel Scheffler - -


Campbell Igloo


Ladybird


Macmillan Igloo


Usborne


9780241003008 £4.51 9780241656655 £4.33 9781035006908 £4.47 9781509866946 £3.31 9781803681504 £1.22 9780241659335 £4.27


Julia Donaldson; Axel Scheffler Alison Green 9781407170701 £4.61 Julia Donaldson; Axel Scheffler Macmillan Rod Campbell


Sam McBratney; Anita Jeram Walker Fiona Watt; Rachel Wells


9781529023527 £4.27 9781529074932 £4.50 9781786701435 £2.00 9781406358780 £4.67 9781805312239 £4.26


Camilla Reid; Ingela P Arrhenius Nosy Crow 9781788005791 £4.31 Julia Donaldson; Axel Scheffler Alison Green 9781407196657 £4.71 Judith Kerr


HarperCollins 9780007215997 £5.10


Julia Donaldson; Axel Scheffler Alison Green 9781407170763 £4.66 Julia Donaldson; Axel Scheffler Alison Green 9781407170725 £4.89 Hinkler


Children’s & YA Fiction Title


1 Diper Överlöde 2 Bunny Bonanza! 3 Powerless 4 No Brainer 5 Wonka


6 Heartstopper Volume 5   


     


7 A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder 8 Harry Potter and the... Stone 9 Impossible Creatures     


11Good Girl, Bad Blood 12If He Had Been with Me 13As Good As Dead 14The Blunders  


17The Impossible Pig 18Destroy the Day  


16 2nd February 2024 9781488947445 £2.99


2,779 2,247 2,062 1,901 1,809 1,785 1,781 1,714 1,690 1,551 1,468 1,374 1,364 1,289 1,273 1,246 1,234 1,182 1,140 1,133


B


ooks for the youngest (or newest) readers are in a purple patch, with


sales through Nielsen BookScan’s Pre-school & Picture Book (P&PB) at £161.5m last year. True, this represents an 8% drop on the previous year, but 2022 was a record, and 2023 is by far the second-best haul through BookScan since records began. And, in a continuing shift in the market, last year represents just the second time in the BookScan era that the pre-school sector has outsold Children’s & Young Adult Fiction. Those familiar with The


Author; Illustrator Jeff Kinney Jamie Smart


Lauren Roberts Jeff Kinney


Roald Dahl et al Alice Oseman Holly Jackson J K Rowling


K Rundell; Tomislav Tomić


10The Ballad of Songbirds and... Suzanne Collins Holly Jackson Laura Nowlin Holly Jackson


15Harry Potter and the Chamber... J K Rowling 16The Swifts  


19Harry Potter and the... Azkaban J K Rowling Katie Kirby


20Lottie Brooks’s... School-Trip


Imprint Puffin


ISBN (+978) ASP Volume 0241583104 £4.95


David Fickling 1788453066 £8.63 Simon & Schuster 1398529489 £5.78 Puffin Puffin


0241583135 £8.88 0241618134 £5.31


Hodder Children’s 1444957655 £8.23 Electric Monkey 1405293181 £6.19 Bloomsbury Bloomsbury Scholastic


1408855652 £5.21 1408897416 £11.44 0702309519 £6.53


Electric Monkey 1405297752 £5.35 Sourcebooks Fire 1728205489 £7.87 Electric Monkey 1405298605 £5.74


David Walliams; Adam Stower HarperCollins 0008305840 £8.24 Bloomsbury


Beth Lincoln; Claire Powell Puffin Jamie Smart


Brigid Kemmerer


1408855669 £5.03 0241536452 £6.65


David Fickling 1788453004 £8.72 Bloomsbury YA 1526664181 £7.55 Bloomsbury Puffin


1408855676 £5.06 0241562055 £5.10


5,359 4,475 3,374 2,986 2,825 2,755 2,319 1,845 1,671 1,660 1,476 1,412 1,324 1,304 1,240 1,226 1,205 1,107 1,047 990


Bookseller’s ongoing charts cover- age will know what drives sales: the tried and true. Nostalgia and the familiar, or rather backlist, sells in P&PB, not least for the very obvious reason that little kids don’t shop for themselves. Week in and week out, the big brands like Julia Donaldson, Eric Carle and Rod Campbell are fixtures on the charts. For example, Donaldson, the UK’s bestselling author last year at £15.6m, has seven titles in this week’s Pre-school Top 20. With a total


value of just over £28m in 2023 through Nielsen BookScan’s Total Consumer Market, Penguin Random House


Children’s remained the number one P&PB house. In addition to being the home of venerable favourites like The Very Hungry Caterpillar and Eric Hill’s beloved character Spot, the publisher has a raft of licensed character proper- ties, including two of the biggest: Peppa Pig and Bluey. Penguin


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