SECTOR ANALYSIS
Children’s top spot between 15th June and 7th November. Its predecessor, the 2017-published Nibbies winner The Lost Words, shiſted over 150,000 copies with a sky-high average selling price of £15.50. Sequel The Lost Spells, only published at the beginning of October, conjured itself all the way into the indie top spot on just five weeks’ worth of sales. The Total Consumer Market-wide charts for the period see Walliams and his long-term illustrator collaborator Tony Ross chart three times in the top five.
In the indie charts, the comedian- turned-author’s first two titles of the year chart in a still-impressive second and seventh place respectively, though Code Name Bananas, released just days before Lockdown 2.0 began, is yet to hit the indie top 50, despite taking the overall TCM-wide number one that week.
Children’s books came into their own as a way to explain to young children why they couldn’t go to school or nursery
Robin Stevens’ final Murder
Most Unladylike title, Death Sets Sail, charted in third place, with nearly 35,000 copies sold through the TCM as a whole since its publication in August. Book-buyers clearly used the trip to their local indie to stock up on the series, as the first title, the originally 2014-published Murder Most Unladylike, hit 13th place. Philip Pullman was clearly also
close to indie bookshop customers’ hearts, with His Dark Materials spin- off short story Serpentine in fourth and the second Book of Dust title The Secret Commonwealth in 11th place. La Belle Sauvage, originally published three years ago, also charted, in 46th place. The coronavirus crisis made its mark across all genres of the indie charts, with Peter May’s crime title Lockdown, writen 15 years before anyone even knew what Zoom was, charting high in the fiction
RETAILERS WITH THE LOST SPELLS
JACKIE MORRIS BELOW PROVED TO BE A BIG HIT WITH INDIE
ROBERT MACFARLANE AND
Trendwatch YA sequels/ reboots for children
164,719 units
Midnight Sun Stephenie Meyer Atom, £20,
9780349003627
48,095 units
The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes Suzanne Collins Scholastic, £18.99, 9780702300172
26,741 units
One of Us is Next Karen M McManus Penguin, £7.99, 9780241376928
26,699 units
top 50 and the Adam Kay-edited Dear NHS operating as a love leter to the National Health Service in non-fiction. Children’s books came into their own as a way to explain to young children why they couldn’t go to school or nursery, or go to grandma’s house, with Eoin McLaughlin and Polly Dunbar’s While We Can’t Hug hiting sixth place. Captain Sir Tom Moore’s picture book One Hundred Steps, illustrated by Adam Larkum, walked all the way into 36th place.
Over Lockdown 1.0, when schools were closed, primary school-level workbooks thundered into the
Children’s Non-Fiction charts, and continued selling strongly across the summer. However, perhaps fevered parents were turning to Amazon in their scramble for home-schooling material, as no educational textbooks hit the independent booksellers chart. But
the indies nailed the entertainment side during the longest summer holiday ever—Rob Biddulph’s Draw with Rob, based on the author and illustrator’s viral lockdown videos, charted 36th.
The Secret Commonwealth Philip Pullman Penguin/DFB, £8.99, 9780241373354
18,508 units
Good Girl, Bad Blood Holly Jackson Electric Monkey, £7.99, 9781405297752
February 2021–July 2021 07
*Sales are across all editions through the entire TCM; 15th June to 7th November 2020.
Photography: Bryan Appleyard
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