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The print market sold 195 million books for £1.59bn in 2016, an almost 7% boost in value over the previous 52 weeks and a 4.5% jump in volume. This makes 2016 the print market’s best year for value since 2010 and its second successive year of growth for both volume and value through Nielsen BookScan's Total Consumer Market.
Joe Wicks has lunged into the UK Official Top 50 number one spot, with his third cookbook Lean in 15: The Sustain Plan (Bluebird) shifting 18,555 copies for £154,702. Despite declining 44% in volume week on week, the title—now in its sixth week on sale—leapfrogged nine places in a stretch impressive even by Wicks’ standards.
His debut Lean in 15 (Bluebird) pogo-ed back in second place in its 53rd week in the Top 50, and Lean in 15: The Shape Plan just missed out on third, selling 474 copies fewer than J K Rowling’s Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them screenplay.
This gives Wicks his 12th week at number one in 2016—level pegging with Paula Hawkins, whose The Girl on the Train paperback racked up a dozen top spots over the summer and autumn. Though Lean in 15 has long surpassed a million copies sold in total, its release in the last week of 2015 means its 2016 sales hit the magical seven figures just last week—gifting that most bizarre of years a hat-trick of million-copy bestsellers (Harry Potter and the Cursed Child (Little, Brown) and The Girl on the Train being the other two).
Richard and Judy Book Club title Jessie Burton’s The Muse (Picador) stole fifth place, swiping the Mass Market Fiction number one from previous Richard and Judy alum The Girl on the Train, while fellow 2017 picks Samuel Bjork’s I’m Travelling Alone (Corgi), Joanna Cannon’s The Truth about Goats and Sheep (The Borough Press) and Hollie Overton’s Baby Doll (Arrow) all hitting the overall top 15.
After Carrie Fisher’s untimely death two days after Christmas, her book The Princess Diarist (Bantam) rocketed over 400 places to hit the Top 50, shifting 3,979 copies.