Thrifty 50: sales drop across the Top 50 bestsellers

We are a little over a quarter of the way through the year, and the bookselling market has already experienced three key selling periods: World Book Day (WBD), Mother’s Day and the Easter holidays. In that time, 46.3 million books have been sold, bringing in £429.3m, according to NielsenIQ BookData.

That volume figure is down a slight 0.4% compared with the first 14 weeks of 2025 – though the value figure is up 1.8%, the equivalent of £7.6m. However, before we celebrate those numbers too soon, it is worth noting that at this point in 2025 there was still one more week of the Easter holidays to go, as well as Easter weekend itself, so we will not have a true reflection of how the market is performing until the end of April.

We can still look at the Top 50 titles in the market, though, to see how they are performing compared with 2025. Any variances still to come in the market against last year’s numbers are likely to impact the deeper children’s range rather than dramatically alter year-on-year performance of the top slice of books.

The early part of 2025 was dominated by two titles in particular: Onyx Storm, the third instalment in Rebecca Yarros’ Empyrean series, and Sunrise on the Reaping by Suzanne Collins, the second prequel to the original Hunger Games trilogy. Between them they brought in £5.8m, taking the Top 50’s total – excluding WBD books – to £25.9m, 52.8% more than the £17m earned in 2026.

Those of you who can do the quick maths will realise that even stripping out those two behemoths of the fantasy genre, 2026 is still more than £3m behind last year – but looking at volume paints a slightly rosier picture. In 2026, the Top 50 has sold 2,599,944 units, a little more than half a million behind 2025. However, that gap shrinks to 115,670 when Collins and Yarros are removed from last year’s count.

There are 43 paperbacks in the Top 50 this year – two more than in 2025 – yet paperback volume in the Top 50 is down 2.5%, while an average selling price that has dropped 

Paperback volume in the Top 50 is down 2.5%, while an average selling price that has dropped 60 pence to £6.14 leads to a value decline of 11.2% 60 pence to £6.14 leads to a value decline of 11.2%, a stark contrast to the overall market

This year’s bestselling title –again, excluding the WBD range, which is given out by booksellers in exchange for the tokens – is The Housemaid by Freida McFadden, with 127,568 sales, followed by a second title from the same author: Dear Debbie has shifted 117,085 copies. McFadden, recently revealed to be Boston brain doctor Sara Cohen, has an impressive nine titles in the Top 50 for the first quarter of 2026, up from five last year. A broader appeal thanks, in part, to the film adaptation of The Housemaid, has surprisingly led to an increase in her overall average selling price (ASP), up to £5.51, from £5.13 last year.

One possible driver of the reduction in value overall in the Top 50 is the mix between adult and children’s books; with lower recommended retail prices (RRP), a shift towards the latter category will naturally reduce the ASP. There are 18 representatives for younger readers in this list, up from 11 last year, including four offerings from colouring collective Coco Wyo versus just the one in 2025.

Six of the children’s titles in the Top 50 this year are Easter related – precisely six more than this time last year. While Easter fell two weeks later last year, with the final week before Easter Sunday not represented in the 2025 data we are comparing against, this year’s tranche of festive offerings has already proven more popular with customers.

We’re Going on an Egg Hunt by Martha Mumford (featuring illustrations from Laura Hughes) was first published in 2016 and has been the most popular kids’ book, shifting 56,775 copies in the first 14 weeks of this year – a number it failed to reach throughout 2025. This edition of Rod Campbell’s Fluffy Chick turns five years old this year and it appears just behind Mumford with 55,579 units, about 15,000 more than it managed across the whole of last year.