In the seven days ending 3rd January, the paperback edition of the acclaimed debut climbed 44 places to reach the summit with 21,712 copies sold. Although its official publication date was scheduled for the 1st of January, retailers were stocking the paperback edition in the run-up to Christmas, from mid-December. In the final two weeks of 2014, the novel sold 11,774 copies, over 8,200 of which were sold in the week ending 27th December. Unsurprisingly, the hardback edition slips from number one to 15th place on the Original Fiction chart but it still sold 1,681 copies for a total in hardcover to date of just under 100,000 copies, worth just over £1m to UK booksellers.
The Miniaturist's success continues a tradition of adult and children's (including YA) paperback fiction titles claiming top spot in the first week of the year. Since the start of the millennium, just two non-fiction titles - Lynne Truss' Eats, Shoots and Leaves (Profile, in 2004) and The Hairy Dieters (Weidenfeld, in 2013) - have broken broken this tradition and claimed pole position on the chart ahead of a fiction title. Jodi Picoult's The Storyteller (Hodder) was the UK's top seller this time last year but weekly sales for Burton's debut are ahead by 15% year on year.
Inside the Top 10, there were three new entries into the Top 50, all paperbacks. Ahead of its Costa First Novel Award success this week, Emma Healey's Elizabeth is Missing (Penguin) was the Top 50's highest new entry, entering at number four, selling 12,124 copies last week. Tony Parsons' well received first crime novel The Murder Bag (Arrow) enters at number seven on the Top 50 and number four in the Mass-Market chart, selling 8,935 copies, and James Patterson begins his run of chart success in 2015, this time writing with Ashwin Sanghi. Private India enters in fifth place and complements the paperback sales of Unlucky 13, written with Maxine Paetro, (both Arrow), which climbs back into the Top 10 at number 10. Combined paperback sales of the two thrillers were 18,026 copies.
Patterson's success does not end there however as the ninth instalment of the Private series, Private Vegas (Century), enters the Original Fiction chart at number four shifting 3,141 copies, down 12% on first week hardback sales of Private India, despite debuting in the same position on the Original Fiction chart. However, that novel was published at the start of the autumn season.
The release of The Miniaturist in paperback and its inevitable decline in hardback means that C J Sansom's Lamentation (Mantle) has reclaimed the top spot for an eighth non-consecutive week at the top giving publisher Pan Macmillan a double fiction triumph. The sixth Shardlake novel comfortably outsold new entries by Tess Gerritsen whose eleventh Rizzoli & Isles crime thriller Die Again (Bantam) enters in second place with 3,915 copies sold and Clive Cussler's latest Fargo adventure Eye of Heaven (Michael Joseph) in third spot selling 3,201 copies.
At the top of the hardback and paperback Non-fiction charts titles remain unchanged. Guinness World Records sold another 8,317 copies but with an average selling price slashed to £6.21 compared with £8.04 the previous week. Alfie Deyes' The Pointless Book (Blink) sold less than 8,000 copies per week for the first time in two months but remains at number one for a 16th week on top, shifting 7,710 copies for a new total of 202,487
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The year got off to a flying start with sales up 11% in value and 0.7% in volume on the same week last year. Overall, 3.3 million book sales registered through Nielsen BookScan last week for a combined value of just under £25.8m.
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