Elif Shafak flows into first place on the indie chart

This week sees three new releases at the top of the Independent Bookshop chart, led by Elif Shafak’s There are Rivers in the Sky (Penguin), which achieved four positions higher than it did in Nielsen BookScan’s wider Total Consumer Market (TCM). Shafak sold 9,235 copies for the full TCM, helped by its appearance on Waterstones’ Book of the Month promotion. While BookScan cannot reveal volume data for the indie chart, nor break down retailer market share, There are Rivers in the Sky’s strong performance here suggests independents were responsible for a significant whack of its weekly total.  

The Seven O’Clock Club by Amelia Ireland (Black & White) takes second place, followed by Paul Cooper’s Fall of Civilizations (Duckworth) – both titles massively over-indexing in indies as they hit 157th and 127th place, respectively, in the total TCM.  

Last week’s indie number one – A Mouth Full of Salt by Reem Gaafar (Saqi Books) – has dropped out of the top 20 completely; total TCM sales have dropped to 19 copies this week, a decline of 99.2% from the previous week’s 2,499 units. Sunrise on the Reaping by Suzanne Collins (Scholastic) slips from second place to sixth in indies, despite managing to keep hold of the top spot in the Official Top 50.  

Julia Donaldson and illustrator Sarah Ogilvie’s Gozzle (Macmillan Children’s) rises one place to fifth, but the biggest jump is for Kaliane Bradley’s The Ministry of Time (Sceptre), which goes from 12th to fourth place, reflecting a similar big rise in the wider TCM where it leapt from 111th place to 26th, with a 91.5% week-on-week increase in volume.  

There are notable absences from the full-market upper chart echelons compared to the indie top 10. Despite taking second place in the TCM – and bagging another Mass-Market Fiction number one – Lee and Andrew Child’s In Too Deep (Transworld) still cannot make a dent in the Indie Bookshop bestseller list. And it is no surprise to see neither Olivie Blake’s Gifted & Talented (Tor, third in the full TCM) nor Where Shadows Meet by Patrice Caldwell (Hot Key, fourth), as both are powered by appearances in subscription box FairyLoot’s April offerings.  

Finally, Easter is taking a little longer to take hold in independent bookshops – despite 11 bunny, chick and egg-themed titles appearing in the TCM Top 50, none of them have yet made it onto the indie bestseller list. 

The full Independent Bookshop Top 20 can be found on The Bookseller’s bestseller pages.