Jeff Kinney secures third week at the top of charts with latest Wimpy Kid book

Despite an increased number of new releases in the past seven days, there was no movement at the top of the UK Official Top 50 according to data from Nielsen Bookscan’s Total Consumer Market (TCM) – with Jeff Kinney keeping hold of the top spot with his latest Diary of a Wimpy Kid title, Hot Mess (Puffin).

In his third week at the top of the charts, Kinney has recorded sales of 16,534 copies – nearly 10,000 units fewer than the previous seven-day period, but ever so slightly ahead of 2023’s No Brainer in the equivalent week in 2023, with 60 more copies sold. In total 80,889 units of Hot Mess have been sold so far this year – 11.3% up against last year, but significantly down against Kinney’s 2012 peak when The Third Wheel shifted more than 200,000 units in its first three weeks.

Kinney’s nearest competitor in the children’s market is David Walliams’ (and illustrator Adam Stower’s) latest offering Super Sleuth (HarperCollins) which slips one place to 10th, but with sales holding steady at just under 10,000 copies. In total this year Walliams has sold 28,578 copies – down 43.8% compared with 2023’s The Blunders.

The latest charts also mark a third consecutive week in second place for Lee and Andrew Child’s In Too Deep (Bantam); the latest Jack Reacher has sold 12,860 copies, just 320 more than the latest edition of the Guinness World Records.

The second highest Original Fiction title this week is Richard Osman’s We Solve Murders (Viking), remaining static in fourth place in the top 50, but it’s tight at the top having shifted just 204 copies fewer than the Guinness World Records and 227 more than fifth place – Emily McIntire’s Hexed (Bloom), this week’s highest new release and the most popular paperback, to boot.

The sixth book in McIntire’s Never After series has sold an impressive 12,109 copies in its first week of release – nearly 10,000 more than Crossed, the previous book in the series which came out in August of 2023.

Other new releases of note this week include Sir Chris Hoy’s All That Matters (Hodder) which débuts in seventh place in the top 50 with sales of 10,455 – sandwiched nicely between cookery titans Mary Berry and Jamie Oliver. Berry’s Mary’s Foolproof Dinners (BBC Books) remains steady in sixth position thanks to her BBC Two series of the same name, while Oliver’s Simply Jamie manages to increase sales by 15.4% week-on-week, returning to the top 10.

Perhaps hoping to repeat their success in the Christmas music charts, Mark and Roxanne Hoyle’s memoir Our Ladbaby Journey rolls into the charts in ninth place, but doesn’t quite break into five figures, settling for 9,869 copies in its launch week.

Ahead of tonight’s announcement of the 2024 Booker Prize winner the shortlist has combined sales of 4,847 – a 2% decline on the previous seven days – led by Samantha Harvey’s Orbital (Vintage) which is massively over-indexing in independent bookshops currently sitting at number five in the Indie Bookshop chart.

The 2023 winner – Prophet Song by Paul Lynch (Oneworld) – saw a 1,489% increase in sales following the announcement, so expect to see this year’s winner rocketing up the chart next week.

Overall, it was a mixed result this week for the TCM – value sales are up 2.7% week-on-week to £38m and volume is at 3.9m a 1.2% growth compared with the previous seven days. It’s not such a rosy picture when comparing to last year though, with volume down 7.6% and value down 8.4%.