Book Shop Boys: Visual record of Pet Shop Boys hits indie number one
It has been something of a red letter day for authors Chris Heath and Philip Hoare as Pet Shop Boys Volume (Thames & Hudson), a complete visual record of the synth-pop duo, has been released in the UK and gone straight to the top of the Independent Bookshop Top 20, according to NielsenIQ BookScan.
While volume sales data is not released for the indie sector, the title has sold an absolutely fabulous 5,581 copies in its first week across BookScan’s overall Total Consumer Market (TCM), delivery a rent-busting £215,569. Second-placed Katie Kirby must be asking, "What have I done to deserve this?" as Heath and Hoare’s success means she is unable to do the double and replicate her TCM number one with The Seriously Epic Holiday of Lottie Brooks (Puffin). But it is alright – she potentially has one more chance to take the top spot next week as copies of Pet Shop Boys Volume signed by the boys themselves likely helped boost their week-one sales.
It‘s a sin that Florence Knapp’s The Names (Phoenix) drops to third place, one place lower than her TCM position – but she does at least take the crown as the bestselling fiction paperback among indies for the first time, and with her closest competitor, Mark Morris’ The New Flesh (British Library), that it is not so hard.
We go west to London where west end girls (and boys) are all reading London Falling by Patrick Radden Keefe (Picador). While the title has done well in the full TCM, debuting in 20th place, it has outperformed with the indies by claiming the fourth spot.
New releases are always on my mind and there are 10 of them in the Indie Top 20 this week, including two from the British Library: the aforementioned The New Flesh and Joseph Shearing’s Airing in a Closed Carriage. It is likely that the majority of their sales come from the British Library’s own shop and subscription but, without retail channel data, it is impossible to say.
Even if the British Library titles’ sales do not come from traditional bricks-and-mortar bookshops, the indies have not let jealousy stop them as there is success for new fiction such as Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke (Fourth Estate), The Ending Writes Itself by Evelyn Clarke (HQ) and The Predicament by William Boyd (Penguin), all of which appear in higher positions in the indie chart than they do in the wider TCM.
British Library books aside, Alan Bennett’s Enough Said (Profile) is the biggest over-indexing title of the week, appearing in 19th place with the indies compared with 202nd place in the TCM – proving that indies still have plenty of sales opportunities (let’s make lots of money).
The full Independent Bookshop Top 20 can be found on The Bookseller’s bestseller pages.
The Bookseller has adjusted the Independent Bookshop chart to remove some titles where sales do not derive from traditional bricks-and-mortar bookshops, such as exhibition catalogues and those featured on conglomerates’ subscription boxes.
