Non-Fiction: Wicks boomerangs back to the top with Feel Good Food
Joe Wicks has returned to the Official UK Top 50 number one spot, with his latest cookbook Feel Good Food (HQ) jumping into the top spot after its first three days on sale, selling 27,729 copies. This is his 19th week in the overall top spot and his ninth Hardback Non-fiction number one, yet it is his first with publisher HarperCollins since making the leap from Pan Macmillan imprint Bluebird.
As long-time readers of The Bookseller charts section will know, Wicks was a blockbuster bestseller long before his turn as the nation’s PE teacher during Lockdown 1.0. His début Lean in 15, published at the very end of 2015, is still his bestseller, shifting more than 1.4 million copies in total and scoring an eight-week stretch in the overall top spot. Selling 77,097 copies in its first week, it was by far the fastest-selling début cookbook of all time, until his former Bluebird stablemates Pinch of Nom came along. Before the first lockdown fell and Nielsen BookScan stopped reporting weekly sales figures, “The Body Coach” saw his sales surpass 3.2 million units, for a whisker under £28m.
Of course, with no figures reported across lockdown periods, it’s difficult to say if Wicks’ quick ascension to national treasure status boosted his sales. His last Hardback Non-fiction number one, the very on-brand baby feeding guide Wean in 15, went straight to the top of the charts in May 2020, yet it was almost instantly knocked from the top of Hardback Non-fiction by lockdown feel-good stalwart Charlie Mackesy’s The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse (Ebury). Wicks’ natural stomping ground is Paperback Non-fiction, where Lean in 15 alone notched up 35 weeks at the top, and his fitness bibles have so far scored a total of 70 weeks in the number one. But he has dipped his toe in the more straightforward hardback cookbook/Jamie Oliver market before, with 2017’s Cooking for Family and Friends shifting 219,277 copies, 2018’s Joe’s 30-Minute Meals selling just under 150,000 copies and 2021’s Joe’s Family Food on 74,865.
Catherine Belton’s Putin’s People (William Collins) spent a second week in the Paperback Non-Fiction top spot. Wordle Challenge (Ivy) made its debut in the chart’s top half.
