The Bookseller.com

1st December 2008

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Gloom envelops the misery memoir market

23.05.08 Benedicte Page and Graeme Neill

Retailers and publishers are struggling in a heavily oversaturated misery memoir market, as latest sales figures show a significant dip in the genre.

Combined volume sales for the top 10 bestselling misery memoirs since the start of 2008 are at 605,126 through Nielsen BookScan, down 27% from 832,430 for the same -period last year. The value of the top 10 misery memoirs for the 19 weeks to 10th May fell 33% to £2.59m from £3.87m last year. The figures come against an overall market showing 5.5% growth year-on-year.

One internet retailer said that while a couple of recent titles had performed very well, misery had "really dipped" since 2007. "If you go back two or three years, it was certain key names like Dave Pelzer doing really well. Last year it all went nuts, but it's almost come around again to just a few titles doing really well instead of lots. There is definitely still demand for the genre, but it's more focused than previously."

Borders books category manager Caroline Mileham added: "The top sellers of these titles do still sell big volumes across the trade, but I do think it's becoming more difficult for the market to sustain the past level of publishing in the genre."

At HarperCollins, one of the major misery publishers, non-fiction publisher Carole Tonkinson said there had been a shift in the market away from hardbacks and towards paperback editions, as more and more publishers piled into the market last year. "The value hasn't levelled off, but the volume of hardbacks is lower as more paperbacks are pushed into the market."

Amanda Harris, editorial director of non-fiction at Orion, agreed: "There has been a drop off in the sales of hardbacks, while paperbacks have been very strong through super-market sales and W H Smith."

Harris said there was still a healthy appetite for the right book in the genre, but that Orion was choosing carefully: "We are now taking every misery memoir on its own merits. Their stock has risen, so there needs to be a conviction by the publisher and the story has to be complete in order for it to work now."

Publisher John Blake added: "I think the trouble is a number of the big publishers are now doing a book a month. Even the most miserable person in the world is being oversupplied by that volume. A number of key buyers are saying to me now that they will only be buying paperbacks priced at £6.99 because it's a way of reducing the onslaught." 

Retail Home Charts Benedicte Page and Graeme Neill