The Booker bounce: Longlist titles rise in sales and acclaim

The Booker Prize longlist has triggered a rise in sales and widespread acclaim for the titles with Valeria Luiselli’s Lost Children Archive (Fourth Estate) enjoying a huge 852% increase in sales. 

As the most high-profile award in UK publishing, the Booker Prize has a dramatic effect on the winner’s sales. Last year’s Milkman (Faber) had sold just 5,619 copies before the mid-October 2018 announcement—it has now sold 223,527 across all print editions. This year’s award cycle is still in its infancy, though the sales momentum can start early on—witness the rise and rise of Graeme Macrae Burnet’s His Bloody Project (Saraband) in 2016, or last year’s longlistee Normal People (Faber) outselling the entire shortlist.

In the week following the announcement of the Booker Prize longlist, Oyinkan Braithwaite’s My Sister, the Serial Killer (Atlantic) was the biggest seller, with its 929 copies sold in hardback a 99% jump on the week before. The hardback, which has already benefitted from a Women’s Prize shortlisting, charted in the Original Fiction top 20 for the first time.

However, in overall sales My Sister the Serial Killer’s hardback, at 13,089 copies sold, is second only to Max Porter’s Lanny (Faber), which has sold 14,783 copies in hardback since its release in March. Its inclusion on the longlist boosted its weekly volume by 65%. The most dramatic rise out of all the longlisted titles was 852%, achieved by Luiselli’s Lost Children Archive (Fourth Estate), which rose from just 21 copies in the week before the announcement to 200 sold last week.

Kevin Barry’s Night Boat to Tangier (Canongate) sold 738 copies last week, a 314% boost week on week, with Elif Shafak’s 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in this Strange World (Viking) shifting 712, up 172%.

All in all, the combined longlisted titles published so far sold 4,740 copies through Nielsen BookScan's TCM last week, up 198% on the week before the announcement.

Lanny may be the people’s princess, but it very narrowly missed out on becoming the critics’ choice too. Lucy Ellman’s Ducks, Newburyport (Galley Beggar Press) is currently the highest-scoring longlisted title on Books in the Media, with its 4.20 weighted average rating just beating Lanny’s 4.19. Ellman’s title, consistently of a single, thousand-word sentence, was described as “an unabashed triumph” by Ian Sansom in the Guardian, and Declan O’Driscoll in the Irish Times praised it as “never less than rewarding” and “one of the outstanding books of the century, so far”.

The reviewers were hardly faint in their praise for Lanny, with Tim Smith-Laing in the Daily Telegraph declaring it “such a wonderful little book” and “every bit as startling, moving and overwhelming as its predecessor”, and Stuart Kelly in the Scotsman writing, “I don’t want to use reviewer-y superlatives, but I don’t think I will read anything else like it this year.”

The Booker longlisted titles scored predictably high star ratings through Books on the Media across the board, with no title on lower than 3.50. Chigozie Obiami, shortlisted in 2015 for The Fishermen, won acclaim for his prose in An Orchestra of Minorities (Little, Brown), with Boyd Tonkin in the Spectator describing it as “rejuvenating music” and Anthony Cummins in the Observer declaring it “rich and vivid”.

John Lanchester’s The Wall (Faber), which has so far sold 11,753 copies in hardback, was described as “a cracking adventure and an astute political fable” by Andrew Billen in the Times, who added, “Every secondary school library in the country needs to order a copy.” The Financial Times’ John Day announced it as the author’s best novel yet, describing Lanchester as “an enviably versatile writer”.

Jeanette Winterson’s Frankissstein (Jonathan Cape) was praised as “playful and inventive” by Rozalind Dineen in the TLS, and “frequently dazzling” and “enjoyably audacious” by Holly Williams in the Independent. Bernadine Evaristo’s Girl Woman Other (Hamish Hamilton) was described by the Sunday Times’ Elizabeth-Jane Burnett as “a read of playful effervescence”. Michael Cronin wrote in the Irish Times, of Barry’s Night Boat to Tangier, “there are no words, at times, to describe what [Barry] does with words”.

Several of the longlist’s biggest hitters are, of course, yet to be released, with Margaret Atwood’s The Testaments (Chatto & Windus) in September and Deborah Levy’s The Man Who Saw Everything (Penguin) and Salman Rushdie's Quichotte (Jonathan Cape) publishing in August. The Handmaid’s Tale has sold nearly a million copies across all editions, with the 2017 TV adaptation tie-in selling 213,938 copies, and her 2000 Booker winner The Blind Assassin shifting 465,079 copies in paperback.

Levy’s 2016 shortlisted title Hot Milk (Penguin) sold 91,719 copies in paperback and 17,541 copies in hardback. Though The Man Who Saw Everything is still a month away from publication, it has already earned one review, with Sharmaine Lovegrove in the Sunday Times describing it as “electrifying”.

The shortlist of six books will be announced on 3rd September at a morning press conference. The shortlisted authors each receive £2,500 and a specially bound edition of their book. The 2019 winner will be announced on 14th October at an awards ceremony at London’s Guildhall, where they will be awarded £50,000.