John Green clings onto chart top spot

02.07.14 | John Lewis - The Booksller

John Green has retained the top spot in the UK Top 50 as The Fault in Our Stars (Penguin) sold another 35,676 copies, giving the author his best seven day sales period for the standard edition of the novel to date.

With 343,149 copies sold so far this year, the novel (excluding sales from the film tie-in) is comfortably ahead of Life After Life (Black Swan) in second place (243,772 copies.) Combined with the film tie-in, The Fault sold 54,151 last week and accounted for 32% of the overall volume of the top 10. Green also sold an additional 18,429 copies of his backlist with Looking for Alaska (HarperCollins, 5,388 copies) and Paper Towns (Bloomsbury Children's 5,008 copies) entering the Top 50 at 29 and 32 respectively. Combined sales for the author's work contributed £382,617 to the TCM for the seven days ending 28th June but so far this year Green's works have generated over £3.4m sales.

In value terms, Green still has some way to go before rising above James Patterson and George R R Martin for paperback fiction sales this year. Based on TCM 5,000 data, combined sales of Patterson's books (including those co-written) for the first 26 weeks have generated sales in excess of £2.68m. Martin's Game of Thrones series for HarperCollins has contributed over £2.7m across 386,546 paperback units since the start of January. Green's £2.1m performance is no less impressive however, given his sales are across just two editions for the same novel.

Following a relatively small publishing schedule last week, just three previously-released titles climbed into the top 20: Minecraft: The Official Beginner's Handbook (Egmont) climbed four places to 20 selling an additional 6,780. Sales surged almost 11% for the four Minecraft titles in the series week on week, selling a combined 34,644 copies. The Construction Handbook overtook the Combat Handbook for the first time in three weeks as the overall bestselling children's book in the UK selling a robust 10,737 copies (up 25%) and climbing back into the top 10 at nine. There were no changes in the top three with Helen Fielding's Bridget Jones: Mad about the Boy (Vintage) shifting an additional 29,213 copies-a figure which would have claimed the top spot in the four preceding weeks.

Paperbacks for the latest novels by Donna Tartt (The Goldfinch, Abacus), Simon Kernick (Stay Alive, Arrow), Katie Flynn (Time to Say Goodbye, Arrow) and Erica James' Summer at the Lake (Orion) were all climbers inside the top 10. Sales across fiction paperbacks rose 3.4% week on week to £4.4m in the seven days ending 28th June based on TCM 5,000 data.

In Original Fiction, The Silkworm (Sphere) retains the number one spot. Sales were down 35% on its debut week but still above 10,000 copies (10,479).

In Non-fiction, there were no changes at the top with Guy Martin holding onto the top spot for a fifth (non-consecutive) week. Only Mary Berry has held the position longer this year, enjoying 11 weeks with Mary Berry Cooks (BBC), which climbs to three this week selling another 2,160 copies.
In Non-fiction paperback, Bill Bryson's One Summer: America 1927 (Black Swan) is enjoying a fourth non-consecutive week at the top. The paperback edition has now sold 63,531 copies since its debut in May.

Overall, £2.9m book sales registered through Nielsen BookScan last week for a combined total of £21.4m, up 2.4% week on week.