Unbound celebrates best ever results in September

Crowdfunding publisher Unbound recorded its best ever trade results last month, with sales across print and digital up 31% in the UK and soaring 94% in the US, compared with September 2020.

It comes after the company's annual financial results revealed a record-breaking year in 2020, with trade sales grow across print and e-book up 58% year on year, though Unbound has not broken out full figures.

Titles that excelled for the publisher include recent Sunday Times bestselling memoir Glittering a Turd by Kris Hallenga, joined by autumn highlights' Completely Staged, the illustrated scripts of the lockdown hit TV series starring David Tennant and Michael Sheen, and Damnable Tales, a collection of 23 classic folk horror stories selected by and illustrated by Richard Wells.

Unbound said it has enjoyed particularly strong support from independent bookshops and has now secured its first sales deal with high street retailer Oliver Bonas, which is carrying Glittering a Turd across its stores. Beyond that, Unbound attributes these recent results to its strategy of "publishing fewer books better".

Sales in the US were boosted by titles including Grand Dishes — Iska Lupton and Anastasia Miari's collection of time-perfected recipes and stories from grandmothers across the globe, following the authors' recent appearance on the "Drew Barrymore Show". 

Women on Nature, edited by Katharine Norbury, has also proved a hit with independents in the US. Good sales are anticipated for Jackie Morris' The Unwinding, publishing in the US next month, in addition to backlist titles including the newly re-jacketed fifth anniversary edition of The Good Immigrant by Nikesh Shukla and Kate Lister's Curious History of Sex.

September also saw the highest number of book launches in a single month for the company this year, with eight new titles including three books from repeating authors, such as Bread and Circuses by Arran Lomas, Hush-Kit Book of Warplanes Volume 2 by Joe Coles and Who Hunts the Whale by Laura Kate Dale and Jane Aerith Magnet.  

Additional launches from first-time crowdfunding authors included Across Time and Space by Tony Cross, Jeremiah Bourne in Time and Space by Nigel Planer, Bardskull by Martin Shaw, Rogue’s Gallery by Martin Rowson and Walking On Thin Air by Geoff Nicholson.  

Unbound’s head of sales Julian Mash said of the results: "This record-breaking month in trade sales is testament to the exceptionally strong publishing programme we have at Unbound. These latest figures are the result of hard work across the company and all the more impressive when considered against the supply chain issues we are all encountering at the moment."