The best-selling environmental authors in the UK over the last decade are James Lovelock, Al Gore and Christopher Booker, plus in top spot the Eden project's Tim Smit.
What do James Lovelock, Tim Smit, Christopher Booker and Al Gore have in common? They are the best-selling environmental authors in the UK over the last decade, according to Nielsen BookScan data published recently by The Bookseller.
Lovelock has amassed about £1.1m in sales from all his books (though his cut would be no more than 10% of that) and, like Gore, I'm not surprised at his high ranking: they are high profile people with striking ideas.
I am more surprised by Smit's success, impressive figure though he is: he tops the Nielsen list with Eden, his tale of the Cornish eco-project, and has total sales of £2.2m, though his book was published way back in 2001. Andre Breedt, Research and Development Analyst at Nielsen BookScan, suggests the reason for this success: the book is sold onsite at the Eden Project. Take note authors, and include the building of a major tourist attraction in your marketing strategy.
As for the sceptic Brooker, he has shifted 20,000 copies of The Real Global Warming Disaster, with a sales value of over £240,000. So his frequent suggestion that those who argue for action on climate change do so to line their own pockets cuts both ways.
Zoning in on the first three quarters of 2010, Lovelock tops the list again, with The Vanishing Face of Gaia, on copies sold. But Cambridge professor and government advisor David MacKay is top for sales income - £80,000 – for his arithmetic-based anti-polemic Sustainable Energy: very good going for an excellently geeky book (especially considering it can be had for free online).
Full story at The Guardian.
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