152,645 Copies of Nineteen Eighty-four sold since Donald Trump’s election


Fiction: Heatseekers Chart A barometer for future bestsellers


has remained doggedly consist- ent in sales since, and no doubt will until long after November 2020 (or even 2024). In the two and half years since the White House’s current resident moved in, the dystopian classic has sold 152,645 copies. In the past six months, it’s sold 33,249 copies—a 50% improvement on the first six months of 2018—and it’s only dropped below a four-figure weekly volume three times. However, Fiction Heatseekers


is not just a place for decades-old titles that reflect how little we’ve moved on as a nation: it’s also a place for new up-and-coming début authors. Hardback Heatseeker hits tend to storm the Top 50 as soon as they’re released in paperback—alumni include Sarah Perry’s The Essex Serpent and Gail Honeyman’s Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine, to name a few. For 2019, Candice Carty-Williams’ Queenie


Title


1 Nineteen Eighty-four 2 A Gentleman in Moscow 3 If I Die Before I Wake 4 The Lido


5 All Among the Barley 6 Home Fire


7 Mad Blood Stirring 8 Girl in the Letter 9 Washington Black 10 Animal Farm 11 Queenie


12 The Rumour


13 The Doll Factory 14 The Overstory 15 Lord of the Flies


16 A Perfect Cornish Summer


18 Daisy Jones and the Six 19 Warlight


In the spotlight


CANDICE CARTY- WILLIAMS’ QUEENIE WAS A HARDBACK HEATSEEKERS HIT


Kamila Shamsie’s Home Fire... shifted almost


16,000 units nearly a year on from its [Women’s Prize] win


and Elizabeth Macneal’s The Doll Factory, both hardback débuts, hit 12th and 14th respectively, which ultimately means this reporter will be cobbling together puns about queens and dolls for charts story headlines in the first half of next year. Though


Taylor Jenkins Reid’s Daisy Jones and the Six is not her début, the


American author’s latest hardback has vastly outsold the rest of her backlist in the UK, charting 19th in the Fiction Heatseekers top 20 for the year to date.


Author Imprint


George Orwell Penguin Amor Towles Windmill Emily Koch Vintage Libby Page Orion


Melissa Harrison Bloomsbury Kamila Shamsie Bloomsbury Simon Mayo Black Swan


ISBN (+978) Volume 0141187761 0099558781 1784705718 1409175223 1408897973 1408886793 1784162962


Emily Gunnis Headline Review 1472255099 Esi Edugyan Serpent’s Tail George Orwell Penguin Candice Carty-Williams Trapeze Lesley Kara


Bantam


Elizabeth Macneal Picador Richard Powers Vintage William Golding Faber Phillipa Ashley Avon


17 The House on Half Moon Street Alex Reeve Raven Taylor Jenkins Reid Hutchinson Michael Ondaatje Vintage Sayaka Murata Granta


20 Convenience Store Woman TheBookseller.com


1846689604 0141182704


33,249 31,029 22,514 16,466 16,059 15,942 15,718 15,632 15,425 15,104


1409180050 14,306 1787630048 1529002393 1784708245 0571191475 0008316129 1408892718 1786331502 1784708344 1846276842


14,134 13,282 13,171 13,124 12,989 12,848 12,739 12,512 12,190


In it to win it Awards are also a sure-fire way to boost an author’s profile. While Anna Burns’ Milkman vaulted straight into the overall top 10 on its Man Booker Prize win in October 2018, its fellow shortlis- tees Esi Edugyan’s Washington Black and Richard Powers’ The Overstory—and longlistee Michael Ondaatje’s Warlight—still received enough of a sales bump to hit the Heatseekers chart several months on. The 2018 Women’s Prize- winner, Kamila Shamsie’s Home Fire, saw its post-awards boost split between “p” and “e”, but still shifted almost 16,000 print units nearly a year on from its win.


Date Range 30h December 2018–29th June 2019. Source Nielsen LibScan


A Gentleman in Moscow Amor Towles Windmill Amor Towles’ historical novel, about a Russian aristocrat forced to live under house arrest during the upheaval of the 1920s, is practi- cally a Heatseeker evergreen. After racking up a five-week run in the Heatseekers number one spot in 2017, it still regularly hits the weekly top 10.





If I Die Before I Wake Emily Koch Vintage Waterstones’ Thriller of the Month for March, If I Die Before I Wake, is top of the Heatseeking crime titles, selling 22,514 copies overall. Lesley Kara’s The Rumour, another psychological thriller début, hit 13th place in the top 20.


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