Food for thought

If you are cooking on a budget, then I have a recommendation. Last week’s number one book Pinch of Nom Budget is an affordable way of finding your way to some delicious food, and published in paperback at a reasonable £17.99, which probably means you can pick it up from a chain bookseller or online for about £9. If you lean (sorry) towards great-tasting grub, however, then I have a different suggestion, the hardback Pinch of Nom Enjoy details every day treats for a slim £3 from the Works, or £2.85 from Amazon. If publishers and retailers were at all joined up about their marketing, they might go with “Save more money, eat betterer”. Nom nom.

I jest, of course. This week, the Christmas Pinch of Nom release (Enjoy) became the biggest selling book through Nielsen BookScan at a pinch (sorry), but was excluded from The Bookseller’s charts for breaking the high discount threshold of 74.5%, as it also will be from other Nielsen-generated charts. Its discount, a mouth-watering 84%. According to this magazine’s charts team, this is rare. Last week saw 261 titles discounted more than 74.5%, but only 25 (including Pinch of Nom Enjoy) in the top 500 – mostly picture books. BookScan actually shows discounting has gone down in the past few years, with the year to date at 23.25%, compared to 2018’s 27.75%. The absurdity that saw new Harry Potter books priced at £4 in the early Noughties is long behind us.

But it’s hardly joyous. As one observer put it, this is the air indies have to breathe, however annoying and demoralising it can be for them to be priced out of retailing leading titles. Channel differentiation is not unusual: in fact, its prevalence has grown. Last week the Women’s Prize-winner Demon Copperhead topped the Independent Bookshop listing, though it was 9th in the overall chart, meanwhile Amazon-published Death Message was top of the Bookstat e-book chart, while Rob Rinder’s The Trial was the lead counsel in the Audible-supplied audio chart. This week’s Lead Story on summer reads further underlines the importance of selection, diversification and hand-selling.

But that does not mean we can afford to be sanguine. We remain in a cost-of-living crisis with The Works one of a number of budget retailers using price as a lever to drive footfall, and likely using its increased high street presence to push for more frontlist books. It is possible that in this case no one thought it would end up as the number one, or that in price-matching ahead of its Prime Day Amazon would amplify the promotion.

Over the past half-decade, the book trade has done well educating consumers about the worth of books, with the much-in-demand Iron Flame retailing at a very slight discount on Waterstones (four months ahead of release), as is the first in the series. Special editions have layered on a new way of adding value. But could a new era of heavy discounting return? One hopes that in the case of Nom, one swallow does not make a summer.