Fiction: Osman hits the target with latest release
Richard Osman’s The Bullet that Missed (Viking) has hit the bullseye, selling 127,743 copies in its first three days on sale. This is the highest first-week volume for any title in the Nielsen BookScan TCM since Kay and Kate Allinson’s Pinch of Nom: Everyday Light (Bluebird) in December 2019, and is the highest launch for any Adult Fiction title since Harper Lee’s Go Set a Watchman in July 2015.
It easily trumps the launch week sale of The Man Who Died Twice, which shifted 114,202 copies in September 2021. Only two weeks in December 2020 for The Thursday Murder Club have it beaten, when the title soared above 130,000 copies sold twice, claiming the Christmas number one.
Anyone who has so much as glanced at The Bookseller’s charts pages in the past two years will be aware of Osman’s salespower, but with the series’ sales escalating, how much further can his star rise? The Thursday Murder Club’s hardback was published between Lockdowns 1 and 2, limiting its sales via BookScan, but publisher PRH reported that it sold well over a million copies, with the May 2021-published paperback topping 1.1 million. Sequel The Man Who Died Twice shifted more than 650,000 copies from its release in September last year, with the paperback already on just under 350,000 units after five months. Osman already accounts for an eye-watering £23m via BookScan, outside of lockdown alone. Combined, he’s already spent 24 weeks in the Official Top 50 number one spot, including a six-week streak for The Man Who Died Twice’s paperback earlier this year—nearly a quarter of the total weeks that have passed since The Thursday Murder Club first landed in 2020.
Claire Douglas’ The Girls Who Disappeared (Penguin) ended the five-week run of Colleen Hoover’s It Ends With Us (S&S) atop the Mass Market Fiction chart. Douglas’ The Couple at No 9 has sold 141,853 copies in paperback alone in the last year. Linwood Barclay’s Take Your Breath Away (HQ) was the second-highest new entry in ninth place, with Olivie Blake’s The Atlas Six (Tor), which went to the Original Fiction number one in hardback earlier this year, débuting in 17th place.
