Weekly E-Ranking: Kay sequel storms to the summit

Adam Kay’s This is Going to Hurt has barely been out of the Weekly E-Book Ranking number one since publication, racking up the most pole positions in the chart’s history, having spent 20 weeks at the top. Given that it’s a non-fiction title, the junior doctor memoir’s achievement is even more impressive: the next most prolific non-fiction number one is Michael Wolff’s Fire and Fury, at two weeks.

However, while This is Going to Hurt was published in e-book format in September 2017 and first hit the ranking top spot in August 2018, its sequel has taken a much more direct route. In its first three days on sale, Twas the Nightshift Before Christmas went straight to the number one spot, unseating Philip Pullman’s The Secret Commonwealth.

Of course, the stocking filler follow-up will have benefited from sales to the legions of Kay fans—This is Going to Hurt has sold a million copies in print alone, without factoring in e-book or audio, and spawned the “professional confessional” trend, with a particular emphasis on medical memoirs. In general, the junior doctor memoir’s success in e-book has helped boost the fortunes of narrative non-fiction in the format, which was previously a fiction heartland.

But a seasonal theme is always a winner in the digital charts, and Christmas starts even earlier than you might imagine. With print reaping the benefits of Christmas-gift sales—there still isn’t really a way to wrap an e-book and put it under the tree, though no doubt Amazon has a development team working on it—the e-book market has breathed new life into Christmas-themed fiction, so much so that it’s trickled over into print success too. Sophie Kinsella’s Christmas Shopaholic and Dilly Court’s The Christmas Wedding charted into the top 20 in the same week they entered their respective fiction charts. If a newly invigorated narrative non-fiction genre wants to jump on the festive bandwagon, Kay will be the one to make the leap.