THIS WEEK


The Lead Story Review of 2019: The First Half


Pan Macmillan leads the Big Four as fiction fires up Faber’s sales in 2019


A record half-year performance for Pan Macmillan, lead by Pinch of Nom and continued success for Adam Kay, Joe Wicks and The Secret Barrister, sees it eyeing the £100m club, as Faber is one of few houses to see gains in the fiction sector


Tom Tivnan @tomtivnan


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or the third time in five years, Pan Macmillan has been the standout performer among Britain’s Big Four publishers at the half-way mark, this time doing it in record stle. The £40.7m Pan Mac sold through the TCM in the first six months of 2019 is by far its best-ever return, obliterating the previous 26-week high-watermark, 2016’s Joe Wicks-led £34.2m.


The charge was spearheaded by Carole


Tonkinson’s Bluebird imprint, with the Pinch of Nom phenomenon contributing £8.7m to the cause. But it is worth noting that it is not just one huge bestseller driving this, but all-round performance: strip out Kay Featherstone and Kate Allinson’s slimming tome and Pan Mac is still up 6.8% this half- year. There has been ongoing success for 2018 standouts such as The Secret Barrister and


Author Top 20


Pinch, Hinch and Obama crack the top 10 as big-name writers grow sales


Adam Kay’s memoir, a Joe Wicks veggie title, and a fine return from the fiction list, with hits including Kate Morton’s The Clockmaker’s Daughter, Kate Mosse’s The Burning Chamber and Ann Cleeves’ Wild Fire.


With what looks like an incredibly strong autumn (including Elton John’s memoir and a festive-themed return from Kay), Pan Mac is a lock to smash its full-year BookScan record (2016’s £77.7m) and, with a litle luck, it may just join Penguin Random House, Hachete and HarperCollins in the £100m TCM club.


It was a mostly decent first half for the other members of the Big Four. PRH surged 7% to £135.6m, but this comes off a 2018 when it recorded its lowest ever post-merger market share. It was a fine half-year for Penguin in particular, up 8.6% to £68.2m,


With what looks like an incredibly strong autumn, Pan Mac is a lock to smash its full-year BookScan record and, with a little luck, it may join the £100m TCM club


02 01


Kay Featherstone and Kate Allinson £8,667,047


N/A


A breakout half-year for Kay Featherstone and Kate Allinson’s Pinch of Nom brand, which started life as a Facebook group. The original book’s 210,000-copy first-week sale meant it was the fastest selling non-fiction title since records began.


08 26th July 2019


David Walliams £7,357,673


18.1%


The bestselling author of 2018, David Walliams, is on pace to cross the £20m barrier in a full year for the first time. Thus far in 2019 he has notched up six overall UK number ones, and claimed the Children’s chart’s top spot 10 times.


03


Julia Donaldson £6,070,727


4.7%


Mighty Julia Donaldson (and her illustrators) rolls on. As always, her success has a lot to do with back- list: a stunning 68 of her books have sold 10,000 units or more in 2019; Walliams, with 31 titles in the 10,000-copy club, is a distant second.


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