Ireland notches a record year of book sales in 2021

The Irish books market—led by strong years from Julia Donaldson, Charlie Mackesy and home-grown stars Sally Rooney and Aisling creators Emer McLysaght and Sarah Breen—defied the pandemic in 2021 to chalk up its highest-ever revenue since accurate records began.

Sales hit €165.9m through Nielsen BookScan's Irish Consumer Market (ICM) last year, €400,000 better than the previous record in 2008 and a rise of 3% on 2020's total. Volume sales were at 13.3 million units sold, the third-best return after 2008 and 2010. The Irish market has seen a remarkable turnaround since sales slipped to €106m in 2014, notching up seven consecutive years of growth through the ICM. 

Donaldson was Ireland's bestselling author in 2021, earning €1.5m, in a year which the children's sector set a record in both value (€47m) and volume (4.9 million units). The top five bestselling authors of the year were all from the children's sector, with Jeff Kinney, David Walliams, Dav Pilkey and J K Rowling joining Donaldson. The quintet were the only authors to earn more than €1m through the ICM last year.

Mackesy's The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse (Ebury) sold 56,000 units for €776,000, to top Ireland's full-year chart in both volume and value sales. The Boy... was the second bestselling title in 2020, losing out to Delia Owen's Where the Crawdads Sing (Little Brown), which also returned to the top 10 in 2021, selling 33,000 copies to hit sixth place.           

Sally Rooney's Beautiful World, Where are You (Faber) was second to Mackesy overall on 45,000 copies sold and topped the fiction charts. Rooney has been a mainstay of the Irish top 20 since 2018, but this was her best ever full-year return.  McLysaght and Breen's fourth novel in the Complete Aisling series, Aisling and the City, was 2,000 copies behind Rooney to capture third place.

Ailsling publisher Gill Books was once again by far the biggest homegrown Irish publisher. With a list that encompasses trade and education, Gill took a 29% value share of books published in Ireland—which was €31m of the ICM's €165.9m—with Sandycove, previously Penguin Random House Ireland, in second place on 9%. Gill's share in the overall ICM was 5%, with PRH once again top at 20%.

Half of the full-year top 20 were by Irish authors or Irish-published including psychologist Maureen Gaffney's look at aging, Year One Wild and Precious Life (Penguin, 8th place, 29,000 copies); John Breslin and Sarah-Anne Buckley's Old Ireland in Colour 2 (Merrion, 11th, 26,000); and David King and illustrator Rhiannon Archard's An Post Irish Books of the Year children's junior category winner, A Hug for You (Sandycove, 12th, 24,000).