It used to be that for a guaranteed boost to sales, all publishers needed to do was sign up a celebrity, get a book out of them – by their own hand or not – put it in the shops and watch the cash roll in.
But new figures show that perhaps Britain is falling out of love with the celebrity memoir, with few of the genre making the top 10 chart despite new offerings from the comedy stalwarts Stephen Fry, John Cleese, Graham Norton and Paul Merton.
Only the memoir of Lynda Bellingham, the “Oxo mum” and Loose Woman who died of cancer in October this year, has made it into the top five. Her book, Something I’ve Been Dying to Tell You, sold 37,118 copies, according to sales monitors Nielsen Book, making it to No 4 in the chart.
The memoir of the British motorcycle racer Guy Martin – a hero of the Isle of Man TT races who has carved a television career often based on his engineering skills – is the only other celebrity title to make the top 10, selling 31,931 and securing ninth place.
A report in the Bookseller magazine said sales of biographies and autobiographies had fallen by almost 4% this year. Earlier this month Charlie Redmayne, UK chief executive of HarperCollins, revealed he had cut back on buying up stars as non-fiction celebrity titles proved risky when publishers had to pay a big advance on a title that could turn out to be unprofitable with a short shelf life. “We’re moving away from big celebrity hit-and-miss stuff,” he said.
“I felt the company had embraced some quite risky celebrity non-fiction. A lot of these books were hugely expensive and they were not necessarily going to backlist [continue to sell] well.”
The other Christmas staple buy – the cookbook – has also fared less well this year. Although Jamie Oliver has topped the Christmas charts multiple times with previous offerings, this year’s outing, Jamie’s Comfort Food, proved less appetising to readers, with a Christmas week sale of 33,309 copies putting it in seventh place in the chart. Tom Kerridge’s Best Ever Dishes was 10th.
Jonathan Ruppin at independent book chain Foyles said: “I think inevitably we can’t keep selling celebrity autobiographies and cookbooks, and big-name fiction, as the things we push every year. Eventually people are bored of it and look for something else. This has been a terrific year for books across the board.”
This year’s bestseller is the Guinness World Records account of everything from how far a dog can ride a scooter to the world’s tallest man – still Robert Wadlow, who was measured at 272cm (8ft 11.1ins) in 1940 – with sales of 58,477 copies in the week to 20 December. It is the first time it has headed the Christmas charts since 2002.
In second place – with a gap of more than 15,000 copies – came David Walliams’s Awful Auntie, with sales of 42,695. “Do you have an awful auntie?” Walliams opens his hit children’s story. “Perhaps your aunt demands you wear that horrendously itchy jumper she knitted for you at Christmas? The one which reads ‘I Love My Auntie’ in huge purple letters on the front? However awful your auntie might be, she will never be in the same league of awfulness as Aunt Alberta.”
Jeff Kinney’s latest Wimpy Kid offering, The Long Haul, in which “middle-school weakling” Greg Heffley and his family take a road trip, came in a narrow third, with sales of 42,279 copies.
“I think it has been a very strong year for young adult and kids’ fiction. And it’s a good signal that books remain an excellent Christmas gift,” said Nielsen’s Andre Breedt. “That’s the story of Guinness – it shows books are still an exciting Christmas present.”
Zoe Sugg’s debut novel, Girl Online, takes the fifth-place slot. Sugg, who has more than five million subscribers on YouTube for her fashion and beauty video blogs, ran into some controversy earlier this month when it emerged that her novel had been ghostwritten, but the drama does not appear to have affected sales, with Girl Online – about a teenage blogger – selling 34,787 copies.
Outside the top five, the top 10 is rounded out by Gillian Flynn’s thriller smash Gone Girl and Boris Johnson’s biography of Churchill.
“The big surprise this Christmas has been Guy Martin. This is the bestselling autobiography of the year and has been the bestselling non-fiction title for Waterstones so far in December – an astonishing achievement for a title that is eight months old and from a figure who is not as widely known as some of the celebrities with books out this autumn,” said Richard Humphreys, Waterstones’ non-fiction buyer.
Foyles’ top 10 ranged from astronaut Chris Hadfield’s You Are Here to Japanese novel The Guest Cat by Takashi Hiraide, with just one memoir, neurosurgeon Henry Marsh’s Do No Harm, in the lineup.
At Waterstones, the Private Eye Annual was the chain’s Christmas No 1, followed by Martin’s autobiography, Jessie Burton’s debut novel, The Miniaturist, and Girl Online.
Nielsen book chart for Christmas week
1 Guinness World Records 2015 58,477
2 Awful Auntie, David Walliams 42,695
3 The Long Haul: Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Jeff Kinney 42,279
4 There’s Something I’ve Been Dying To Tell You, Lynda Bellingham 37,118
5 Girl Online, Zoe Sugg 34,787
6 Gone Girl, Gillian Flynn 34,222
7 Jamie’s Comfort Food, Jamie Oliver 33,309
8 Churchill Factor, Boris Johnson 32,625
9 Guy Martin: My Autobiography 31,931
10 Best Ever Dishes, Tom Kerridge 26,481
