Headline plots to ensure 'Dan Brown bread'

04.11.09 Catherine Neilan The Bookseller

Headline rearranged the publication date of Martina Cole's latest novel Hard Girls to take advantaged of the week when Dan Brown's sales would be lowest, ensuring a number one slot in the Original Fiction chart.

Kerr MacRae, deputy m.d and c.o.o, said the publisher had "plotted against Harry Potter" to work out the optimum date to schedule her launch. Yesterday it was revealed that Cole had taken her ninth turn at the top of the fiction chart. MacRae said: "We thought Dan Brown would be at the bottom of his trough by this week, by using a book of the same magnitude to see what happened - the closest we could predict was 30-40,000, so it was the lower end of what we expected. But then we didn't expect to go to number one on a partial week."

He added: "The fact that Martina has got to number one and knocked Dan Brown off, when no one else could, is testament to her, and it's great that a domestic author can do that to a big international star. As Martina would say, he's 'Dan Brown bread'."

Headline is now anticipating increased sales for Brown's novel in the run up to Christmas, although Cole is also expected to be a big festive seller. "There will be another curve to the Dan Brown rollercoaster, but Martina goes up proportionately as well," said MacRae. "We will be trying to keep her there as long as possible, and that becomes harder the closer we get to Christmas – but do have additional things up our sleeve, including a big TV campaign with WHSmiths."

Part of her growing popularity was "probably to do with 'The Take'", which had appeared on Sky1 during the summer, but also to do with support from the high street chain. "We had a great result from W H Smith," MacRae said.