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January sales have had book-buyers flocking to the high street but post-Christmas sales are down on last year. In total, £28.2m was spent at UK book retailers, including online, last week - down 26.6% on the previous week and 9.7% year on year.
The high street performed slightly better, with sales through Nielsen BookScan's General Retail Market, a strong indicator of high street bookshop performance, down a shallower 7%, to £18.6m year on year.
The bestselling book of the week ending 2nd January was Pedigree's The X Factor Annual. However, because it sold for just £2.39 on average - 81.6% off its £12.99 r.r.p - it, along with numerous other titles, is excluded from The Bookseller's official bestseller lists this week—which contain any title not discounted by more than 65%*.
In total, 25 titles that sold more than 5,000 copies last week were discounted by more than 65% on average, up from 15 in the comparative week last year. Of the 25, 12 sold more than 10,000 copies through BookScan's Total Consumer Market, and all of them are annuals—including the likes of The Beano Annual (22,449 copies sold at 73.7% off its £7.99 r.r.p.) and The High School Musical Annual (18,033 copies sold at 79.6% off its r.r.p.).
With deep-discounted stock excluded from the charts, Stephenie Meyer takes the top three positions. Her third Twilight novel, Eclipse (Atom), takes top spot with a 27,059 sale, while Twilight (20,231 copies sold) and Breaking Dawn (19,144) take second and third position respectively. James Patterson's Run for Your Life (Arrow) takes fourth with the mass-market edition of Meyer's New Moon in fifth.
This week's highest new entry is Sarah Waters' The Little Stranger. The Man Booker shortlistee is the first member of Channel Four's forthcoming "The TV Book Club". It sold 11,715 copies last week—strong enough for 12th position overall. Nick Hornby's Juliet, Naked (Penguin) also joins the Official UK Top 50, in 18th place.
*For comparison purposes, an un-edited Official UK Top 50 is available online, alongside the regular edition based on The Bookseller's long-established chart inclusions/exclusions policy.