I haven't even begun my Christmas shopping, but it seems at last that book buyers have.
Printed book sales soared by £5.5m week-on-week last week—according to Nielsen BookScan TCM data, £41m was spent on physical books in the seven days to 26th November, up 15.5% on the previous week, but for the fourth consecutive week, sales were down more than £4m year-on-year.
Recession or no recession, some things never change, as this has been a week for high-figure advances, not least that of Prince William's sister-in-law, Pippa Middleton, who scored a deal with Penguin for a reported £500,000. World rights were signed in the book, which is lined up for autumn 2012 and will cover entertainment themed across the seasons.
A very different title also scored a "high six-figure sum"—although perhaps not quite as high. HarperCollins has snapped up world English rights for a memoir by Mandy Retzlaff who, with her husband, rescued horses injured and abandoned during the Zimbabwe farm evictions, eventually escaping to Mozambique with 104 horses.
And for those with a hankering to write their own novel, Orion, Good Housekeeping and agent Luigi Bonomi have linked up to find the next big novelist. A £25,000 advance is up for grabs.
Meanwhile, speaking this week at the London leg of the Reuters Global Media Summit but looking ahead to 2012, Penguin c.e.o. John Makinson, has predicted "dark clouds" on the horizon.
He said: "This is a business which has always been driven very much by supply rather than demand factors. Consumer taste doesn't actually change all that much but what does change is the availability of books in different channels . . .
"It is tougher to predict how we will be 12 months from now, as an industry, than pretty much any time that I can remember."
Printed book sales soared by £5.5m week-on-week last week—according to Nielsen BookScan TCM data, £41m was spent on physical books in the seven days to 26th November, up 15.5% on the previous week, but for the fourth consecutive week, sales were down more than £4m year-on-year.
Recession or no recession, some things never change, as this has been a week for high-figure advances, not least that of Prince William's sister-in-law, Pippa Middleton, who scored a deal with Penguin for a reported £500,000. World rights were signed in the book, which is lined up for autumn 2012 and will cover entertainment themed across the seasons.
A very different title also scored a "high six-figure sum"—although perhaps not quite as high. HarperCollins has snapped up world English rights for a memoir by Mandy Retzlaff who, with her husband, rescued horses injured and abandoned during the Zimbabwe farm evictions, eventually escaping to Mozambique with 104 horses.
And for those with a hankering to write their own novel, Orion, Good Housekeeping and agent Luigi Bonomi have linked up to find the next big novelist. A £25,000 advance is up for grabs.
Meanwhile, speaking this week at the London leg of the Reuters Global Media Summit but looking ahead to 2012, Penguin c.e.o. John Makinson, has predicted "dark clouds" on the horizon.
He said: "This is a business which has always been driven very much by supply rather than demand factors. Consumer taste doesn't actually change all that much but what does change is the availability of books in different channels . . .
"It is tougher to predict how we will be 12 months from now, as an industry, than pretty much any time that I can remember."
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