International spotlight: Australia

Scott Pape’s The Barefoot Investor was Australia’s number one title for January 2018, carrying over from topping the overall bestseller charts in both 2017 and 2016. To compare, Pape’s nearest British equivalent, MoneySavingExpert.com founder Martin Lewis, has sold 81,588 copies of his 2005 title The Money Diet since publication; The Barefoot Investor nearly managed that in the past month alone, and in a much, much smaller market. The nation deftly weathered the 2008 credit crunch that hit the US and Europe hard as it held no government debt, and this fiscal responsibility seems to have trickled down to consumers.

Mark Manson’s The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F *ck charted in second place, shifting nearly half what The Barefoot Investor did. Though the self-help book author is American, sales Down Under were boosted last year after the Aussie actor who plays Thor, former “Home and Away” cast member Chris Hemsworth, posted on Instagram that the book had given him "the kick up the arse" he needed.

Michael Wolff’s Fire and Fury has, of course, inflamed bestseller charts in both the UK and the US, and Australia is no exception. Donald Trump once put the phone down on the country’s prime minister, so it’s no surprise that its citizens have revelled in the contents of the White House exposé. It shifted 27,491 copies last month, for an average selling price of $29.55— around £17.

While Australians seem to hunger for down-to-earth financial advice and homegrown Hollywood stars’ recommendations, Brits want a cookbook with a cold hard number applied to it, which is why Jamie Oliver’s 5 Ingredients walked away with the title of bestselling book of the year in 2017. It sold strongly Down Under too, with 230,515 copies sold in 2017. In January it impressively maintained sales in the diet-book-heavy "new year, new you" period, selling 17,777 copies to chart fourth.

Jojo Moyes’ conclusion to her blockbuster Me Before You trilogy, Still Me, released at the tail end of January, impressively shot into sixth place and sold 16,639 copies. It wasn’t the only romance title in the top 20, with Lynne Graham’s The Secret His Mistress Carried in 19th place. The Mills & Boon title by the Northern Irish author has been a runaway hit Down Under: it sold 82,636 copies in 2017, despite being published three years prior to that. Only titles by Liane Moriarty, Dan Brown and Lee Child charted above The Secret His Mistress Carried in last year’s fiction charts.

Crime writer Jane Harper (pictured above) seems to be following in the footsteps of compatriot Liane Moriarty. Harper’s Outback-set début The Dry enjoyed global sales success—it still resides in the UK’s weekly e-book chart, months after publication, and was Waterstones’ Book of the Month twice last summer—but Australians are never shy about backing their own. The Dry, and Harper’s follow-up, Force of Nature, shifted 150,000 copies between them in 2017 and both charted in January’s top 20. It should be noted that it’s currently summer in Australia, so many of those reading The Dry will be having a particuarly visceral experience

Kaur strength
Canadian feminist Insta-poet Rupi Kaur is taking over the world. The Sun and Her Flowers became the first poetry book to top the Paperback Non-Fiction chart in the UK, and her début, Milk and Honey, sold 1.5 million copies in the US in 2017. And Australia has embraced her too. Milk and Honey sold more than 50,000 copies
in the country last year and fell just outside January’s top 20, while The Sun and Her Flowers charted in 17th place.

Man and Woman
Australia may be adept at backing its homegrown authors, but two of its biggest sellers in January were hyped-up crime hardback débuts... written by an American and a Brit. A J Finn’s The Woman in the Window, a New York-set Hitchcockian psychological thriller, charted in eighth place for the month, while C J Tudor’s British village-set Stephen King-esque horror novel The Chalk Man hit 15th.