Weekly E-Ranking: Tombland hits heavenly heights

CJ Sansom’s seventh Matthew Shardlake title Tombland has buried the competition in the Weekly E-Book Ranking, sweeping straight into the number one spot. Tombland has racked up a double first, securing Sansom his first overall print and e-book number ones. (Although, admittedly, the sixth Shardlake title Lamentation was published two years before the Weekly E-Book Ranking came into existence.)

Heather Morris’ The Tattooist of Auschwitz bounced up the e-book list to second, returning to the runner-up position for the first time since July. It’s a spot it knows well, having charted in second place 14 times. The début’s e-book edition spent 30 weeks in the digital top 20 while only otherwise available in hardback, and while a dampening effect could be expected now the cheaper paperback edition is on sale, The Tattooist of Auschwitz’s word-of-mouth appeal seems to be balancing it out. Perhaps, with its paperback publication coming significantly later than that of its fellow summer 2018 blockbusters Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine and This is Going to Hurt, it will end up the biggest seller of them all.

The festive season is an odd time for the e-book market. Despite new hardback fiction titles flooding the market, and savvy Kindle owners snapping them up in "e" for a marginally cheaper price—and in a far more portable format (imagine lugging 866-page Tombland or 656-page Lethal White around in hardback)—the e-book’s inherent un-giftability makes late autumn and December a quietish time for the Weekly E-Book Ranking. However, there are some green shoots: Jenny Colgan’s An Island Christmas, new in sixth, will undoubtedly have been "self-gifted" to e-book buyers looking to feel festive.

And sometimes, a book you’d think would be a sure-fire Christmas gift-buy can end up in the e-book chart too. It seems Channel 4 "Supervet" Noel Fitzpatrick commands a rabid-enough fanbase that some just can’t wait for the print copy of his memoir Listening to the Animals to appear under the Christmas tree, and have already downloaded the e-book. It débuts in 17th.

Week ending 20th October 2018. 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.