Weekly E-Ranking: Sweet 16 for Adam Kay’s memoir

Adam Kay’s 15-week Weekly E-Book Ranking number one This is Going to Hurt has returned to the top spot for a sweet 16th, seven weeks on from its last pole—and nearly a year on from its first time at the top. While in print, the former junior doctor’s memoir has sold over 900,000 copies, the e-book has notched up the most number ones for a non-fiction title in the weekly e-book chart, by some distance.

Now it’s gunning for the ultimate prize—the record for the most number ones overall is jointly held by Paula Hawkins’ The Girl on the Train and Gail Honeyman’s Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine, at 19 weeks apiece. This is Going to Hurt has already demonstrated remarkable longevity, so it’s perfectly likely that in a month’s time, the longest-running title in the traditionally fiction-dominated e-book chart will be a non-fiction title.

Clare Mackintosh’s police procedurals have spent a total of 47 weeks in the Weekly E-Book Ranking since 2016, but her first non-crime title, After the End, has scored her joint-highest ranking of second place. Lesley Pearse’s You’ll Never See Me Again entered the chart just below, in third. Both entered the Original Fiction chart in the top five in the same week covered by the ranking.

However, it was Gill Sims’ Why Mummy Doesn’t Give a ****! that claimed the Original Fiction number one in hardback format, while its e-book entered the Weekly E-Book Ranking in sixth. Sims is especially successful in hardback, with her previous two titles vastly outselling their paperback editions. Her status as a "mummy blogger" may be the reason for this imbalance—internet stars tend to sell stronger in "p" than they do in "e", as followers want a physical way to buy into their fandom. Witness the great YouTuber wave of 2015–16: vloggers thundered across the print charts while barely making a dent in the e-book ones.

But the biggest influencer in this e-ranking was Kay—non-fiction titles were firmly in the "ordinary people-extraordinary jobs" memoir genre, with fellow medic Amanda Brown’s The Prison Doctor in 12th and The Secret Barrister in 15th.

Week ending 29th June 2019. Titles with a selling price below £2 are excluded, as are titles priced £4.50 or below with any print versions priced above £17.99. Participating publishers: PRH UK, Hachette, HarperCollins, Pan Macmillan, Bloomsbury, Simon & Schuster, Bonnier Zaffre & Canongate.