According to our Books & Consumers survey, in the 12 months to May 2024, 13% of book purchases in the UK were influenced by the front cover, rising to 15% of print books, 18% of impulse buys, 19% of in-store purchases and 30% of books discovered via physical shops.
In 2023, consumers spent £26m on translated fiction print books in the UK, up 12% on the previous year. Bestsellers in 2024 so far are indicating another year of growth
Children’s middle-grade fiction has been seeing a shift in recent years, with increased interest in graphic novels & comic strip fiction; in fact, the top fiction author this year is Dav Pilkey, author of Dog Man, followed by Bunny vs Monkey author Jamie Smart at third.
We’ve passed halfway point for 2024 (already!) and the UK print book market held up well in the first six months of the year, with spending on books down just 1% despite a steeper 3% drop in number of books bought. This year’s top earner to date is Bored of Lunch Healthy Slow Cooker: Even Easier by Nathan Anthony, approaching £1.7m, although the cookbook ranks third by volume, surpassed by the paperbacks of The Last Devil to Die by Richard Osman and The Secret by Lee & Andrew Child.
Every year I write our UK Book Market in Review, and one of the sections is a month-by-month timeline that highlights the big books and authors of the year along with literary prizes and external factors that have a hand in driving the market. One of those external factors is film and TV adaptations, and there are SO MANY nowadays.
Happy Independent Bookshop Week! I always like to do a post for this every year because a) support bookshops! and b) the bestsellers versus the wider market are so interesting to compare.
The UK is the oldest of the BookScan territories, with data back to 1998, and over the years, we’ve expanded our coverage to 11 other countries, most recently Colombia, launched in 2023. The individual market charts always show an interesting mix of global hits and more local bestsellers, and extending that to the lifetime charts for each country paints a fascinating picture of the favourites in the BookScan era.
