The Bookseller.com

4th July 2009

Beedle knocked off Amazon Xmas top spot

30.12.08 Katie Coyne

Amazon.com has reported its “best ever” Christmas sales for the fourteenth year in a row – it said on its peak sales day of 15 December, 72.9 items were sold every second.

Both in the US and UK, the best selling book in the Christmas period was The Tales of Beedle the Bard by J. K. Rowling.

However, while Beedle was the best selling book at Amazon.co.uk over Christmas, it was beaten to the top spot by the DVD of the film musical Mamma Mia.

Amazon.co.uk said in previous years, sales of the Beedle book would have been enough to secure it the top spot. Brian McBride, managing director of Amazon.co.uk, said: “Copies of ‘Mamma Mia!’ were flying off our virtual shelves from the moment it was made available for pre-order.”

He added: “We have only ever encountered demand like that previously for the boy wizard.”
 
Beedle was the only book to reach the top ten best sellers on the Amazon.co.uk list – the rest were DVDs. Amazon.co.uk said its best day of Christmas sales was Monday 8th December when it received orders for 16 items per second.

While Beedle was top of books sold at Amazon.com over Christmas two of Stephanie Meyer’s books from the Twilight Series stole both second and third place. These were Eclipse and Breaking Dawn, respectively.

Amazon.com reported that if it stacked end to end all the copies of Breaking Dawn it had sold over the Christmas period, it would reach the summit of Mount Everest eight times. Across 2008 Breaking Dawn was Amazon.com's best selling item.

Amazon.com measured the Christmas period from 15th November to 19th December while the UK division measured this period from 1st November to 18th December.

Amazon.co.uk has also released its top ten best selling books for 2008 and these are: 

1.       The Tales of Beedle the Bard
2.       Dear Fatty
3.       Jamie's Ministry of Food: Anyone Can Learn to Cook in 24 Hours
4.       Delia's How to Cheat at Cooking
5.       A Thousand Splendid Suns
6.       Jamie at Home: Cook Your Way to the Good Life
7.       The Book Thief
8.       Dreams From My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance
9.       Aliens Love Underpants!
10.     A Quiet Belief in Angels

amazon Home Christmas Beedle Katie Coyne

Comments on this article