The Bookseller.com

2nd December 2008

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Best World Book Day ever

11.03.08 Philip Stone

Last Thursday's World Book Day was the most successful one ever in sales terms. The nine £1 tie-in publications combined to sell 399,089 copies through the market in the seven days to 8th March, 52,725 units more than the £1 books did in 2007. Martin Handford's Where's Wally? (Walker) topped the charts, with a 66,961 weekly sale.

Delia Smith's How to Cheat at Cooking (Ebury) was the only non-World Book Day title to hold on to a top ten place. The controversial cookery manual sold 36,024 copies last week, which was only good enough for eighth position in the overall chart.

Meanwhile, among the £1.99 Quick Reads, Terrance Dicks' Doctor Who: Revenge of the Judoon (BBC) proved the most popular with the buying public, shifting 3,114 copies though Nielsen BookScan's Total Consumer Market last week. The ten Quick Reads combined for 14,561 total sales over the seven days.

Meanwhile, due to the popularity of the cheap titles, revenue through the Total Consumer Market fell by 7.1% week-on-week to £30.6m, but volume sales increased by 1.7% to 4.5m. Year-on-year, revenue and volume sales were up 6.2% and 7.1% respectively, in part due to World Book Day falling a week later this year than in 2007.

World Book Day in pictures

Retail Bestseller News World Book Day Philip Stone