Review of 2018: HarperCollins and Pan Mac attack top two

HarperCollins (2018) and Pan Macmillan (2017) have won the last two Publisher of the Year Nibbies; their successes were due, among other things, to strong results through Nielsen BookScan’s Total Consumer Market.

If that criteria tickles the judges’ fancies for this year’s awards, both HC and Pan Mac may be in with a shout for another title. HC’s TCM takings last year—led by Gail Honeyman and the David Walliams/Tony Ross double act—shot up 8%, against the overall market rise of 2.1%. Eight is a magic number for HC this year: it is the second consecutive year it had a TCM value surge of 8%, and it garnered an 8% market share too. With newbies like Adam Kay, the return of old hands such as C J Sansom, and continued strong sales of mega-brands Julia Donaldson and Joe Wicks, Pan Mac also had a sizzling 2018, jumping 9.5% in value terms to post its second-highest total through BookScan since records began.

Humbled Penguin

Alas, it was not the best year for Penguin Random House. In fact, it was its worst in terms of market share. PRH claimed 19.8% of all TCM sales, the first time since BookScan publisher records began (in 2001) that the group—including pre-merger totals but minus DK—has ever dipped below 20%.

Every time we compile publisher league tables, we stress that they are based on TCM sales only, which cannot encompass export, digital, rights and many other revenue streams for publishers. We are obviously not privy to strategy meetings, but c.e.o. Tom Weldon’s PRH may be concentrating more on improving the bottom line than market share—at least, they were in the period they would have been acquiring 2018 titles—than some of its more free-spending competitors who recorded TCM gains. It is perhaps a sensible way forward, but whether that still is the case, or chimes with the wishes of shareholders remains to be seen. Even with the robust rises of HC and Pan Mac, and a market-beating bump for Hachette (+3.1%), PRH’s contraction meant the Big Four as a whole had a 44.9% share, its lowest since records began.

Soaring sales

Speaking of free-spending, Bonnier Books’ 52% TCM rise is by far the biggest percentage jump of the top 20 publishers, and is eclipsed in the top 50 only by Newton Abbott-based indie Centum’s meaty 61.6% rise. A good portion of Bonnier’s increase could be attributed to the, ahem, largesse of former boss Richard Johnson’s regime. Celebrity memoirs from Gary Barlow, Lily Allen and Roger Daltrey collectively made £2.4m, although all were reportedly acquired for hefty advances. A big driver, too, was the Igloo and Autumn mass market children’s division—in 2018, it generated just over a quarter of Bonnier’s TCM sales, compared to 13% in 2017. Fiction was ruled by Heather Morris’ The Tattooist of Auschwitz, responsible for 41% of imprint Zaffre’s sales, and 9.4% of the entire group’s.

There were decent returns for Bloomsbury, whose 6.9% bump was led by relative newcomer Tom Kerridge (£4.7m) and old hand J K Rowling, who was responsible for 13 of the firm’s top 25 books by value. Simon & Schuster was flat in value terms and down against the overall market; it just did not have many huge hits, with Philippa Gregory’s The Last Tudor its only title to top 100,000 units.

There were also excellent double-digit rises for mid-table Scholastic and Faber. Scholastic benefited from The Wonky Donkey mania and fine returns from Liz Pichon and Donaldson. Faber basked in the Man Booker and Waterstones Book of the Year glow: Anna Burns and Sally Rooney generated 16.1% of its TCM revenue.

Just two top 20 publishers have had unbroken year-on-year TCM rises this decade: indie test guides powerhouse CGP and Amazon’s p.o.d. arm Createspace. CGP “only” jumped 9.1% in 2018, ending a run of four years of double-digit percentage gains.

High Risers: Hawes hit boosts Old Street

Old Street easily tops our High Risers chart, mostly due to James Hawes’ smash The Shortest History of Germany. Hates’ book was published in 2017 and, having been particularly championed last year by independent shops and Waterstones, earned just under £590,000, accounting for 77% of the publisher’s 2018 TCM takings.

Black & White’s 81% leap is in good measure down to the £400,000 earned by Scottish rugby international Doddie Weir’s memoir of his playing career and living with motor neurone disease. Exeter-based annuals specialist Little Brother has been operating for three years and a big part of its success in 2018 was its tie-ins to LOL Surprise, the hugely popular dolls franchise (so named because customers buy a pink suitcase without knowing which doll is inside). Fellow Devon children’s indie Centum had 31 titles shift over 10,000 copies in 2018 (four of which were LOL Surprise titles), up from 11 in 2017.

Wizards of the Coast has benefited from the resurgence in Dungeons & Dragons (the classic role-playing game has, of late, been co-opted, like everything good and pure, by hipsters). D&D fans are willing to pay good money for their gaming guides: WotC’s top seller, Dungeons & Dragons Player’s Handbook, sold 21,000 units at a whopping average selling price of £27.60.

Deep Divers: Shop drop sees Parragon shuttered

Often the publishers who appear on our somewhat brutally named Deep Divers chart are there because they are being compared against an outstanding previous year. That is certainly the case for Tate Publishing, which had a monster 2017 with Chris Stephens’ David Hockney, the companion volume to a blockbuster Tate Britain exhibition. Alas, the public did not flock to 2018’s big shows in the same numbers, and sales faltered.

Short Books suffered from not having a new Michael Mosley title in 2018 after the health guru’s The Clever Guts Diet was a smash in 2017. As Mosley is back with a number one in this week’s chart, it is a good bet that Short might be on 2019’s High Risers chart. Quirk’s drop is down to the decline in Roderick Ransom’s Miss Peregrine series. There is, however, a bit of a graveyard of bygone publishers feel to this year’s chart. Former licensed character and annuals powerhouse Parragon leads the way; it was shuttered this year, with its closure blamed on shrinking margins and a squeeze on retail space by owner D C Thomson. Christian publisher Lion Hudson was rescued from administration in late 2017 but, understandably, had a vastly reduced output in 2018. Nelson Thornes is now owned by Oxford University Press, and part of its reduction is to do with titles migrating to OUP’s list.

Read our Review of 2018: The Big Four Publishers here, our Review of 2018: Independent Alliance here and our Review of 2018: Specialist Publishers here.