Canongate teams up with Audible on Haig's non-fiction for Blue Monday

Canongate is partnering with Audible to make excerpts of Matt Haig's non-fiction books available through Alexa smart speaker announcements.

Kicking off today (17th January), on what is sometimes described as Blue Monday, the most depressing day of the year,  Alexa users will be able to listen to a short excerpt from The Comfort Book or Reasons to Stay Alive, in response to them saying "Alexa, brighten my day".  The initiative will run for seven days.

The excerpts will be taken from the audiobook recordings read by Haig, and will also feature in the "What’s New with Alexa’" newsletter and in the Alexa app under "Things to Try".

Haig's non-fiction books include Reasons to Stay Alive, Notes on a Nervous Planet and The Comfort Book as well as seven novels for adults, including The Midnight Library, How to Stop Time and The Humans. He also writes award-winning books for children, including A Boy Called Christmas, which was made into a feature film last year. The Midnight Library (Canongate) topped Amazon's most read chart for 2021, which includes e-book and audiobooks in Audible in addition to physical copies. In July 2021, he became the first author to feature on Bookshop.org's Indie Champions chart twice in the same month.

According to Nielsen BookScan TCM, he has sold 2.4 million books  for £16.8m, with his bestseller The Midnight Library on 488,097 copies sold in paperback (excluding lockdown figures.)

Joanna Lord, head of UK and digital sales at Canongate, said: “I'm so delighted to be working with the Audible and Alexa teams to bring Matt Haig's comforting and inspiring words to even more people. There's something very special about hearing an author read their own works and I hope this promotion will bring a little joy to listeners in what can feel like a long, gloomy month.”