Jennie Godfrey reads from her Yorkshire-set novel The List of Suspicious Things
Gary Stevenson’s The Trading Game did not match its UK-wide success in the north
2024), however that contrasts with the rest of the country, where the top 50 is up £8.3m. This suggests, at first glance, that readers in the north are more interested in the bigger tail. Yet that may not tell the full
story. In 2024, retailers in the north accounted for 18.4% of all sales, but they over-indexed in sales of the annual Top 50, claiming 22.6% of the UK’s sales of these titles. In 2024, total sales have risen to 18.6% of the total TCM, but the north’s share of the Top 50 has reduced to 20.9%, suggesting that the £8.3m growth in the TCM’s Top 50 is just the rest of the country starting to catch up with its northern counterparts. Titles in the north’s Top 50
In the Spotlight
largely reflect the TCM Top 50 for the same period – the top seven, which includes four World Book Day titles, is identical – with the north accounting for at least 22% of sales of each title in the top 15. There are not any titles that the region is particularly running away with, though three of its biggest over-indexes in sales terms are for colouring books from the Coco Wyo collective.
Jennie Godrey The List of
Suspicious Things Cornerstone, £9.99, 9781804942949
Godfrey’s The List of Suspicious Things is the one General Fiction title from the Top 50 to buck the trend. It appeared in 13th position in the wider TCM’s Top 50, but rose to 11th place in NielsenIQ’s North region chart. That is perhaps no surprise as the coming-of- age story from the Yorkshire-born author is set in the county when it was terrorised by the Yorkshire Ripper: 23.9% of its sales come from northern readers.
109,562 TCM copies sold
T
here are some areas in which the region is underperforming. There are titles in the north’s Top 50 where
it has earned less than 20% of the nation’s sales, including two of the big Non-Fiction hits of the year
– James Clear’s Atomic Habits and Gary Stevenson’s The Trading Game – as well as Dav Pilkey’s Big Jim Begins and Blue Sisters by Coco Mellors ( 1). It is the final title of that list
which provides the biggest insight into the habits of northern readers. There are six titles which appear in the TCM Top 50 that do not make it into the equivalent list for the north, with four of them coming from the General Fiction category. The highest-profile of these is the Booker Prize-winning Orbital by Samanta Harvey, which is the UK’s 20th-bestselling book of the year but only makes it to 64th position for readers in the north.
21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30
Titles in the north’s Top 50 largely reflect the TCM Top 50 for the same period – the top seven, which includes four World Book Day titles – is identical
Less than one-fifth (18.9%) of the
General Fiction category’s total volume comes from the north, considerably behind the total fiction average (23.1%). The cate- gory is the fifth-most popular – falling from third position in the UK-wide list – slipping behind Picture Books and Romance & Saga. The latter category is the most popular among readers in the north, alongside Crime, Thriller & Adventure, with more than a quar- ter of sales in both sectors coming in the northern regions.
REPORTING Alex Call 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 31 32 33 34 35
Cozy Cuties Penguin, 9780241764206
This Story is a Lie (WBD) Benjamin Dean Simon & Schuster, 9781398542679
The Soccer Diaries...(WBD) Tom Palmer Rebellion, 9781837864140
Big Jim Begins Dav Pilkey Scholastic, 9781338896459
20,980 20,686 20,037 18,940
The Strawberry Patch Pancake... Laurie Gilmore HarperCollins, 9780008713348
Ward D Freida McFadden Poisoned Pen Press, 9781464228575
The Scarlet Shedder Dav Pilkey Scholastic, 9780702340291
Cozy Corner Penguin, 9780241764220
A Court of Mist and Fury Sarah J Maas Bloomsbury, 9781526617163
We Solve Murders Richard Osman Penguin, 9780241997482
The Let Them Theory Mel Robbins Hay House UK, 9781788176187
Fearless Lauren Roberts Simon & Schuster, 9781398531277
The Dark Wives Ann Cleeves Pan Books, 9781529077780
18,861 18,823 18,260 18,005 17,708 17,409 17,250 17,131 16,865
The Magic Balloon (WBD) C Anka; A Quartey DK Children, 9780241734612
16,729
All Poems Aloud (WBD) J Coelho; D Gray-Barnett Wide Eyed Editions, 9781836002864
The Housemaid Is Watching Freida McFadden Poisoned Pen, 9781464223310
Powerless Lauren Roberts Simon & Schuster, 9781398529489
16,650 16,065 16,058
The Housemaid’s Secret Freida McFadden Little, Brown, 9780349132600
15,956
Death at the Sign of the Rook Kate Atkinson Penguin (Transworld), 9781804994528
The Wrong Sister Claire Douglas Penguin, 9781405957618
Girl Moments Independently Published, 9798344507460
Blue Sisters Coco Mellors Fourth Estate, 9780008623036
Poppy’s Choice Dilly Court HarperCollins, 9780008580919
Atomic Habits James Clear Random House Business, 9781847941831
No Brainer Jeff Kinney Puffin, 9780241583159
A Court of Wings and Ruin Sarah J Maas Bloomsbury, 9781526617170
The Trading Game Gary Stevenson Penguin, 9781802062731
15,131 14,934 14,769 14,673 14,509 14,383 14,322
The Dinosaur... Easter! Poynter & Fletcher et al Puffin, 9780241488812
The Very Hungry Caterpillar Eric Carle Puffin, 9780241003008
Never Lie Freida McFadden Poisoned Pen, 9781464221361
14,244 13,946 13,879 63 15,684 15,684
PENGUIN BOOKS
Charts Market Spotlight
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