Donaldson’s decade: children’s author seals 10th year of eight-figure success

The relentlessly popular Julia Donaldson posted TCM sales of £10m-plus for the 10th consecutive year in 2019, despite failing to overtake David Walliams as the nation‚Äôs top-earning author for the past calendar year.

What a decade it has been for Julia Donaldson. The Gruffalo co-creator closed out the 2010s with a record 10th consecutive year of earning £10m or more through Nielsen BookScan‚Äôs Total Consumer Market; no other author has shifted eight figures in more than five straight years.

Donaldson‚Äôs success in 2019—up 4% to a smidgeon over £14m—has been achieved in the usual fashion: not with a blow-the-doors off bestseller, but hefty and consistently selling backlist. Oh, sure, her and Axel Scheffler‚Äôs newest, The Smeds and the Smoos (Alison Green), did very well indeed, shifting 116,000 units from its September publication to the end of the year. But it was “only” the 84th-bestselling book of the year, and she had just one other title, Zog—also Scheffler-illustrated and Alison Green-published—in the top 100. Contrast that with the top-selling author David Walliams, who had seven books in the BookScan top 100, three of which were in the top six. Instead, Donaldson had 75 books in the 2019 TCM Top 5,000. Only Fiona Watt rivals Donaldson on that front: the Usborne stalwart had 70 titles, while James Patterson was a distant third on 34.

Donaldson (and her many illustrators) crossed the landmark £150m TCM mark in early 2019, becoming just the third author to do so (after Jamie Oliver and J K Rowling) and by the time you read this, she will be close to £165m. There used to be quite a gulf between Oliver and Donaldson—in the early part of this decade around £75m separated the two—but if sales patterns continue (given current form, it would be surprising if they didn‚Äôt), Donaldson will surpass Oliver to become the second-bestselling author of all-time in 2022. Still a way to go to unseat Rowling, though, who is on £332m.

Century mark
Walliams also had an all-time TCM milestone in 2019, crossing the £100m mark in November on his way to earning the top author nod for the third consecutive year. Impressively, he and his illustrator partner in crime, Tony Ross, had the top-selling book in the UK in one out of every four weeks in 2019, and claimed just under half of the weekly Children‚Äôs pole positions in the year.

Rowling had her usual Potter-powered 12 months, but elbowing into the top three was 2019‚Äôs breakout team of Kay Featherstone and Kate Allinson. We have sung the praises of the Pinch of Nom duo for most of 2019—12 overall number ones and the fastest-selling non-fiction title of all time—and we just may be doing so this year, as Pinch of Nom Everyday Light (Bluebird) captured the first top spot of 2020 (see Data, p18). Spots 13 and 14 on the chart are the other two breakouts of 2019: Charlie Mackesy on the back of his Waterstones-powered Christmas hit, and cleaning influencer Mrs Hinch.

Returnees to the top 50 include Margaret Atwood, Bill Bryson and Terry Pratchett; the late fantasy author was boosted by the Amazon adaptation of his and Neil Gaiman‚Äôs Good Omens. Also back is Rick Stein, in 50th place. Interesting, as in a year when slimming, vegetarian and vegan cookery were all the rage, Stein returned on the strength of Secret France (BBC Books), which presents his beloved French cuisine in all its cheesy, meaty glory. And he narrowly outsold (by £100,000) the trendy BOSH! duo of Henry Firth and Ian Theasby in the process.

In all, £222.8m was earned through the TCM by the top 50 authors in 2019, a chunky 11.5% rise on what the authors on the list generated in 2018. There were also 139 writers who earned more than £1m through BookScan (Walliams to Caroline Criado Perez), 12 more than 2018. It is also the ninth year on the trot that the number of “BookScan millionaires” has increased year on year.