‘Between the Covers’ review titles — The deep dive that can make a difference

The latest series of BBC Two’s “Between the Covers” ended this week, showcasing Jonny Sweet’s début thriller The Kellerby Code. First published in hardback back in March and with the paperback due in February of next year, it is likely that neither Sweet nor publishers Faber had planned for an early December sales surge. But how much of a boost can they expect?

“Between the Covers” started in autumn 2020 and has since broadcast eight series and featured more than 250 titles – covering everything from big blockbusters such as Lessons in Chemistry to classics like Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales.

In each 30-minute episode, host Sara Cox is joined by four celebrity guests who discuss that week’s featured titles. Much of each episode is taken up with the group talking about that week’s main pick—chosen by production company Cactus TV, the team behind the original Richard and Judy Book Club—but each guest also gets to pitch one of their favourites in the Bring Your Own Book (BYOB) segment.

Regardless of whether a book is that week’s main pick or a BYOB, most receive some kind of sales boost immediately following broadcast, with the few exceptions being evergreen titles such as Malorie Blackman’s Noughts and Crosses, or newer books which are still benefiting from existing publicity campaigns.

Maggie O’Farrell’s Hamnet declined 1% in the week following its appearance on the show, just six weeks after the paperback was published. Contrast that with O’Farrell’s The Marriage Portrait which had been available in paperback for nearly five months when it was highlighted by Miles Jupp in December of 2023 – sales jumped by 3,100 copies in the week following its appearance.

Some titles have seen huge percentage increases thanks to a low pre-appearance performance – for example, Louise O’Neill’s After the Silence sold just one copy in the week prior to appearing as Laura Whitmore’s BYOB pick in April 2023 and then soared to 263 sales the following week.

Other instances have seen stock availability impact the potential performance – while the main review titles are publicly revealed in advance, the BYOBs are not, possibly taking some publishers by surprise. In the latest series, Stephen Mangan’s BYOB pick – A Goat’s Song by Dermot Healy – jumped 4,325% from sales of four per week to 177 units.

Stock was in short supply, though, and it didn’t realise its full potential for another two weeks when sales more than tripled to 611 copies. Similarly, Faber’s Book of Reportage was selling between one and two copies a week in the first few months of 2022. Sales jumped to 73 units following Jo Brand championing it on the show at the beginning of June before dropping again to single digits a fortnight later.

Once a reprint made it through the supply chain, though, sales jumped back up to 228 units and the book went on to sell 2,400 copies in the past six months of the year, proving the boost the show provides doesn’t have to be a flash in the pan.

The titles that really do well, though, are ones like the aforementioned The Marriage Portrait – books which are already out in shops and held in good quantity in the publishers’ warehouses. “Between the Covers” highlighted Delia Owens’ Where the Crawdads Sing two months before the film adaptation was released, resulting in an extra 2,000 copies sold immediately afterwards.

Bookshop staple A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara jumped by 1,300 units after Nish Kumar picked it as his BYOB, while The Island of Missing Trees added an extra 4,000 copies to its weekly total after a recommendation from Ruth Jones in November 2023.

What of The Kellerby Code, then? So far in the latest series the main picks have seen an average increase of 879 copies following review – meaning that not only should Jonny Sweet see a big week-on-week increase, he could improve his lifetime sales by a third. Just as long as the stock is there.