Osman out ahead as market shrinks by 1% in first-half
Prince Harry’s 2023 memoir Spare may have led to a record week for the market—but remove this royal contribution, and 2024 is not lagging too far behind.
At the halfway point of the year, Nielsen BookScan’s Total Consumer Market value rests at £767.7m after more than 84 million books exchanged hands—a 1% drop on the same 26-week period last year. At first glance, the £8.8m dip is worrisome. However, the gap is easily explained by £9.8m worth of Spare change.
Prince Harry’s revealing memoir Spare became available on 10th January last year. In its first week, more than 467,000 sales were recorded at a value of £6.6m. That same week, value peaked for the first half of 2023 at £38.2m, meaning that Spare accounted for 17% of the weekly total. It was a record week for the market, besting the previous half-year’s top result (£35.5m) as well as the highest result for this year so far (£34m) by a few million pounds.
In total, Spare sold more than 690,000 copies during the first 26 weeks of 2023 and its value reached £9.8m. If we remove Prince Harry’s huge contribution, however, the half-yearly results for 2024 appear more on par with 2023.
The average weekly TCM value for the past two half-years is almost identical
This is also true when we compare results at a more granular level on a week-to-week basis. Over the course of the past 26 weeks, there were only three instances where year-on-year performance was materially different, striking double digits in January (thanks to 2023’s royally good start) and twice again in March, owing to a shift in the timings of World Book Day (WBD) and Nathan Anthony’s publishing schedule.
In fact, the average weekly TCM value for both half-year periods is almost identical. Their difference amounts to less than £400,000. Without Spare, it’s possible to speculate that this half-year would have actually outperformed the last.
The current top 50 bestselling titles feature many of this year’s Official UK Top 50 number ones. Anthony’s Bored of Lunch Healthy Slow Cooker: Even Easier, which was the first number one of the new year, landed in third place. The Northern Irish social media sensation held pole position for two weeks in January and another two weeks in April when Bored of Lunch Healthy Air Fryer: 30 Minute Meals, which currently ranks 39th, was released.
After Anthony, came three SFF number ones, which helped sustain the genre’s nine-week streak at the top of the Original Fiction chart. Interestingly, none of these three appear among the current top 50, not even romantasy author Sarah J Maas’ much-anticipated House of Flame and Shadow. It missed out on a spot by fewer than 2,000 copies, ranking 56th with more than 67,000 copies sold. Among her various series, Maas’ Court of Thorns and Roses series has been garnering the most attention this year across print and digital formats as evident from the first book making 14th place.
In sixth place, one might remember Lunchbox Superhero by Mark and Roxanne Hoyle and illustrated by Gareth Conway as the bestselling title of this year’s WBD, which took place on 7th March. Greg the Sausage Roll enjoyed four weeks at number one in the run-up to the event.
David Nicholls’ You Are Here went straight to the top after its 23rd April release and appears in 49th place, below One Day in 37th. A small-screen adaptation introduced Dex and Emma to a new audience when it began streaming on Netflix in February, reinvigorating its sales.
“One Day” was not the only book-to-screen series to land in the first half of the year— however, it seems to have had the most impact on print sales. The authors of the Bridgerton novels, Julia Quinn, and The Three-Body Problem, Cixin Liu, seemed to get their biggest boost in the e-book market instead.
Of course, with an incredible six weeks atop the Official UK Top 50, Richard Osman’s The Last Devil to Die is currently the number one book of 2024, having sold more than 200,000 copies in just seven weeks.
