Nielsen’s annual book sales report for 2015 makes pleasant reading for booksellers and publishers, with the Irish market up 10.8 per cent in value and 4.4 per cent in volume year on year.
The bestselling title was The Girl on the Train (60,476 sales), followed by three children’s titles – Grandpa’s Great Escape, the latest David Walliams (44,100); Animal Activities in the Woods (36,000); and Old School: Diary of a Wimpy Kid, the latest Jeff Kinney (33,100) – then Grey: Fifty Shades of Grey as Told by Christian (27,696); Anne Enright’s The Green Road (27,300); Joe Duffy’s The Children of the Rising (26,000); Irelandopedia by John and Fatti Burke(23,300); Until Victory Always by Jim McGuinness and Keith Duggan (23,100); and Brooklyn by Colm Tóibín (22,600).
Adult fiction represented 24.8 per cent of the market by value in 2015 vs 24.6 per cent in 2014. The Girl on the Train outsold Grey: Fifty Shades of Grey as Told by Christian by more than 2 to 1 to take the top spot, at 60,476 copies vs 27,696, only a few hundred copies ahead of Anne Enright’s The Green Road. Perennial favourite Ross O’Carroll-Kelly came fifth, with Seedless in Seattle at 20,931.
The top publisher group of 2015 was Penguin Random House Group with value sales of €27.9 million, representing a market share of 23.6 per cent. They were followed by the Hachette Group at €15.7 million, representing a market share of 13.3 per cent; HarperCollins came in at €8.9 million value sales (7.5 per cent market share) and Gill & Macmillan with €5.2 million (4.4 per cent market share).
Gill & Macmillan was the most successful Irish publisher, with 330,167 sales, to a value of €5,156,082, takin g 18.8 per cent market share; followed by Edco; Penguin Random House; Folens; CJ Fallon; Hachette Books Ireland; O’Brien; Collins Press; Mercier; and Veritas.
The Top 10 Irish publishers are based on sales where the country of publication is Ireland. In total, Irish published titles were worth €27.4 million, or 23.3 per cent of the overall market, down marginally from 23.8 per cent in 2014. In general, Irish publishers have done very well, being up 8.1 per cent in value and 6.1 per cent in volume. These Top 10 Irish publishers combined accounted for €21.6 million. Only one of the top ten publishers has a negative year-on-year change, while six of those in growth are in double digits.
Gill & Macmillan had a range of successes, most notably, Irelandopedia: A Compendium of Maps, Facts and Knowledge and Until Victory Always, A Memoir. Hachette had the biggest success with The Children of the Rising, while Penguin Ireland had the Ross O’Carroll-Kelly title, followed by Henry Shefflin’s The Autobiography and The Happy Pear: Healthy Easy Delicious Food to Change your Life.
