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World Book Day helped the market rebound week-on-week, according to the latest sales data from Nielsen BookScan, but the promotion failed to emulate last year's "best ever" year. The six £1 World Book Day titles combined to sell 288,708 copies, down more than 100,000 on the total number of units shifted last year by the nine £1 tie-ins.
Top title was the flip-book Winnie to the Rescue!/Yuck's Rotten Joke Ha! Ha! Ha!, which shifted 63,697 copies, ahead of Mr Gum in the Hound of Lamonic Bibber/Sephir the Storm Monster in second. The six books took the first five and seventh positions in The Official Top 50, with Marian Keye's This Charming Man taking the sixth spot.
Last week's number one Jamie's Red Nose Recipes dropped to eight, while the paperback of Booker winner The White Tiger moved up to ninth after its first full week on sale.
The books helped the market record sales of £30.2m, up 6.8% on last week's dismal £28.3m. Volume sales recovered better, rising 13.5% week-on-week. However, despite the WBD-boost, it was only the TCM's fourth-highest week so far this year, and was below the £30.6m recorded in WBD-week last year.