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Julia Donaldson has bested fellow bestsellers J K Rowling, Jamie Oliver and Dan Brown to become the only author to record annual sales of over £10m in five consecutive years.
The Gruffalo creator sold almost £239,000 last week through Nielsen BookScan's Total Consumer Market, to bring her tally for 2014 to £10.02m on just under 2.09 million units.
Donaldson is now the only author to record five years in a row of eight-digit revenue since BookScan records began. Rowling achieved that feat in four straight years from 2000-2003, while Brown (2000-06) and Oliver (2010-12) each had three years on the trot. Meanwhile, James Patterson has twice had consecutive eight-digit years (2006–07 and 2010–11). Stephenie Meyer and Stieg Larsson both had runs of two consecutive years in 2009 and 2010.
In 2013, Donaldson had her best year ever through the TCM, selling £12.9m and through 45 weeks in 2014 her totals are marginally up on last year's sales (by £3,000).
All told, Donaldson has sold £91.2m through BookScan since records began, and is the fourth bestselling author all-time, trailing Rowling (£250.8m), Oliver (£146.5m), Patterson (£119.1m) and just ahead of Brown (£90.99m).