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Eight of the top 10 publishers saw double-digit drops in printed book sales year-on-year in the 12 weeks to 24th March, according to the latest Nielsen BookScan figures, which do not include e-book sales.
Sales of physical books for the 13 weeks to 31st March are running at a nine-year low, at £313.6m.
Among the leading publishers, Hachette UK, in top spot, saw a 19% fall overall in sales of physical books to a total of £34.6m, compared with £42.9m in the same period last year. Random House, in second position, dropped 15% from £40.3m to £34.1m, while Penguin, in third, plunged 19% from £39.2m to £31.9m, due in part to the huge success of Jamie Oliver’s Jamie’s 30-Minute Meals in the first few months of 2011.
HarperCollins dropped 10% from £23.2m to £21m, while physical book sales at Pan Macmillan also suffered by comparison to 2010 because of a major 2010 title - in its case, Emma Donoghue’s Room - tumbling by nearly a quarter (24%) in total from £11.8m to £9m. Simon & Schuster showed the most robust print sales of the top 10 houses, falling just 2% to £5.7m.
Notable performers in the first 12 weeks of 2012 are Egmont, which showed 19% growth in its print sales to £4.4m, due to sales of Michael Morpurgo’s War Horse, and Scholastic, which saw a huge 70% surge to £3.9m on the back of the film of Suzanne Collinss The Hunger Games. Usborne grew 2% year-on-year to £3.4m, helped by the popularity of its sticker book range.