World Book Day sales soar as report assesses engagement

Sales of World Book Day (WBD) titles soared by more than 50% in comparison to last year, with 469,274 copies in total shifted in the week of the event, sales figures have shown.

An evaluation of the national event, which took place on 1st March, was shared exclusively with The Bookseller this week. It revealed that in 2017, for the first time in five years, the entire WBD selection topped the charts, and that for the first time the Official UK Top 50 had an all-WBD top 10. The UK children’s market grew by £1.4m (22%) compared to the week before the event. David Walliams’ Blob (HarperCollins Children’s) posted the biggest single-week volume of any single WBD title, selling 103,571 copies in the week of the promotion, and was the industry number one for four weeks.

Booksellers also reported that the event boosted footfall in stores, according to the research compiled by the charity’s director, Kirsten Grant. Around 87% of retailers said the campaign increased the number of visitors to their shop, up 11% from the number who reported an increase in 2016. Figures also showed that the UK children’s market was up 17.9% in value week on week for the period around World Book Day. Meanwhile, sales of Book Tokens grew 37% in the UK and 54% in Ireland during WBD week compared to the previous week, Grant said.

Libraries also appeared to engage more with the event: 160 library authorities signed up to receive display materials, representing 76% of the nation—a 10% increase on 2016. The data suggests around 18,500 children aged between three and 11participated in WBD through the 51 libraries that completed the surveys. That figure represents an increase of nearly 50% on 2016 (8,500), but the figure across all libraries is expected to be much higher—it is estimated to be around 50,000 young people. Eighteen per cent of the libraries said they saw an increase in new members, who joined on or around the day of the promotion.

However, certain aspects of the World Book Day event were not as effective as the organisers had hoped, the report also revealed. The campaign collaborated with mobile phone provider O2 “as a last- minute opportunity” on its Priority Moments scheme, which provides offers and discounts for users, however the latter only amassed around 8,066 page views. The report reads: “This is disappointing for the size of the opportunity, so we will need to consider carefully if this is something we will repeat in 2018—or if another exclusive offering would be more effective with a longer lead-in time.” Much of the publicity proved successful, however, with World Book Day trending on Twitter at number one in the UK and in the US for 11 consecutive hours; its popularity on the social media site peaked at 2 p.m. GMT, with more than 25,000 tweets sent about the event.

Grant told The Bookseller that the WBD team plans to streamline activity. She said: “World Book Day has been on a huge growth trajectory since 2012, so the plan for 2018 will be to focus on a number of key areas, aiming to make them as big as possible.

“A challenge we face is that we ask consumers to do a number of different things on and around World Book Day—visit your local bookshop, redeem your token, get your free £1 book, celebrate reading and have fun, actually read a book—so [we] are constantly refining these messages, to make them as clear a call-to-action as possible.”