SECTOR ANALYSIS
title has been a year-in/year-out till point earner since it was released in 2008, shiſting 172,000 copies through Nielsen BookScan’s Total Consumer Market with consistent annual spikes in sales during school holidays and the run-in to Christmas.
The Little Book of Jokes… is a great example of how wide the gulf can be between indies and the market as a whole: it hits second here, but is the 1,055th bestselling
children’s book of the same period across the entire TCM. And there are fewer of some of the big brands. David Walliams is represented once in the indie Top 50, but is in fiſth place; compare that to the overall kids’ TCM where he and illustrator Adam Stower have three titles in the Top 50, including numbers one and two (The World’s Worst Monsters and The Blunders).
An impressive one in every five books on this chart have been published by David Fickling Books
Trendwatch Adventure titles for children
73,873 units
A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder Holly Jackson Electric Monkey
41,608 units
Good Girl, Bad Blood Holly Jackson Electric Monkey
40,434 units
An impressive one in every five books on this chart have been published by David Fickling Books (DFB)—the same ratio as behemoth Penguin Random House Children’s— nine of which come from Jamie Smart. The graphic novelist has sold 381,000 copies for £3.1m in the first 47 weeks of 2023; that’s 85% of DFB’s total TCM revenue.
The 10th DFB book is S F Said’s and
illustrator David McKean’s nine-years- in-the-making Tyger, its fortunes helped by hoovering up a slew of gongs including the British Book Awards and Foyles’ children’s books of the year prizes, and in September 2023 it was Waterstones Fiction Book of the Month.
Which brings another point as to how closely indies and Waterstones are linked. Books “made” in indie shops are oſten picked up by the Big W and promoted across its estate. And customers clearly notice the titles
The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes Suzanne Collins Scholastic
JAMIE SMART AND S F SAID BELOW ARE AMONG THE STARS FOR DAVID FICKLING BOOKS
Waterstones promotes in its Books of the Month and Year—then go buy them at their local indies. The Hannah Gold and Levi Pinfold creative team are a good example, as they have three titles in the top 22 here, with a series that was really kicked off when The Last Bear won 2022’s Waterstones Children’s Prize. Look no further than the number one spot for a demonstration of indies leading the way. Owing to deadlines, this data’s cut-off was before Katherine Rundell and Tomislav Tomić’s Impossible Creatures was named the Waterstones Book of the Year and its sales went through the roof, but indies have supported it since its September launch.
36,873 units
Five Survive Holly Jackson Electric Monkey
36,073 units
As Good as Dead Holly Jackson Electric Monkey
*Sales are across all editions through the entire TCM.
February 2024–July 2024 07
© Charlotte Knee Photography
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