Walk this Way: David Nicholls hikes to the top of the charts

A fictional tale in which two people take a walk across some of England’s most beautiful scenery has made it to the top of the charts, according to the latest data from NielsenIQ BookData’s Total Consumer Market (TCM). 

No, it is not Raynor Winn getting a “no publicity is bad publicity” fillip (of which, more below): it is the paperback edition of You Are Here (Hodder) by David Nicholls, which in its second week on sale sold 20,124 copies, a jump of 20.6% on its launch period. It is the eighth time that Nicholls has arrived at the summit of the Official UK Top 50, but his first time hitting the Mass-Market Fiction (MMF) chart for slightly more than a decade when Us bagged the pole position in May 2015.

Nicholls pushes Claire Douglas out of the prime spot in the MMF Top 20 as sales of The New Neighbours (Penguin) drops 23.1% to 13,062 copies in its fourth week, though that is enough to keep it in third place in the TCM Top 50.

The only title in this week’s TCM Top 10 that is not a fiction paperback, Katie Kirby’s Lottie Brooks vs the Ultra Mean Girls (Puffin), drops from first to second place following a 30.7% reduction in sales compared with its second week on sale. But Kirby’s middle-grade novel comfortably keeps first place in the Children’s Top 20 with 16,275 copies sold, more than twice Coco Wyo’s Cozy Corner (Penguin), despite the colouring book’s take rising 13.5% to keep it in second place.

This week’s biggest new release is Brigitte Knightley’s The Irresistible Urge to Fall for Your Enemy (Orbit). The debut romantasy title from Knightley – which has an exclusive edition with Waterstones, as well as being due to appear in Illumicrate’s July subscription box – manages to rack up 4,294 units in its first week, but that is only enough to put it in second place in the Original Fiction (OF) Top 20.

Instead, Lisa Jewell’s Don’t Let Him In (Century) climbs one place to take the crown, despite a 39.7% fall in sales to 7,262 copies in its second week. Last week’s OF number one, Rose in Chains by Julie Soto (Magpie), sees sales wilt 90.5% to 1,526 copies, dropping it 12 places down the chart.

The biggest Non-Fiction release of the week, Richard Harpin’s How to Make a Billion in Nine Steps (Piatkus) falls somewhat short of its promise (to be fair, this is the first step), delivering just £36,430 across 1,846 copies in its first week, putting it in fifth place in the Hardback Non-Fiction Top 20. Instead, at the pinnacle of the ranking, The Let Them Theory by Mel and Sawyer Robbins (Hay House UK) steps aside to allow Emily English to return to the top spot with Live to Eat (Seven Dials) – the latter has sold 6,416 copies in the past seven days, a 344.3% increase on the previous week.

Steven Bartlett’s The Diary of a CEO (Ebury Edge) sees a 60.8% increase to 5,759 copies, putting it in first position in the Paperback Non-Fiction chart – with Gillian Anderson’s Want experiencing a similar increase to take it from fifth place to second, interesting 4,953 readers.

While possibly not high on Winn’s list of problems right now, it is mixed news for The Salt Path (Penguin) following the Observer’s recent article. The film tie-in edition has seen its sales rise 16.3% taking it from seventh place to fifth in the PBNF Top 20, but the original edition has lost a quarter of its sales, pushing it from second down to seventh. Combined, the two editions have seen sales drop 8.9%. Which actually is a slower rate of decline than in the week prior to the Observer’s allegations.

In total, the TCM has seen volume rise 1.5% to 3.3 million books – though conversely value has fallen, down 0.9% to £29.8m. Compared to the same week last year, unit sales are down 4.4%, with value falling slightly slower, down 3.2%.