More Good News for Black Swan
24.02.09 Philip Stone writing in The Bookseller

Richard and Judy Book Club participant Kate Atkinson's When Will There be Good News? (Black Swan) retained pole position in a strong week for the book trade.

£30.9m was spent through Nielsen BookScan's Total Consumer Market in the week ending 21st February, up 2.9% on the comparative week last year when Delia Smith's Delia's How to Cheat at Cooking (Ebury) contributed almost £1 million to the market alone.
Despite sales of Atkinson's drama falling by 12.4% week-on-week, its 29,856 weekly sale proves strong enough to stay at number one, ahead of Stephenie Meyer's New Moon (Atom).
With Sophie Kinsella's Confessions of a Shopaholic securing third position and David Ebershoff's The 19th Wife receiving a boost after going under the Richard and Judy spotlight mid-week, it means Transworld imprint Black Swan secures the top three positions in mass-market fiction this week.

The titles sit ahead of Peter Robinson's All the Colours of Darkness (Hodder) and Sebastian Barry's Costa-winning The Secret Scripture (Faber)—the bestselling book at independent bookshops last week.
Karen Rose's Scream for Me (Headline Review) is this week's highest new entry in 16th position. Released officially on 19th February, it sold 11,852 copies through the TCM last week, 223 copies more than the hardback edition sold in its nine months on sale.

Meanwhile, Stephenie Meyer (pic right) continues her domination of the children's market, once again locking out the top four positions. Thus far in 2009, sales of her titles have contributed just over £5 million to the market—2.1% of the £238.6m spent thus far.

FOOTNOTE:

Kate Atkinson was a star performer at last year's Christchurch Writers Festival where Bookman Beattie caught up with her. Link here to read my report.