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Vintage has re-printed 250,000 copies of Samantha Harvey’s Orbital (Vintage), which became the first Booker Prize-winning book to reach the top of the charts since records began.
The book sold 20,040 copies in hardback and paperback in the week following the announcement, making it the bestselling title in the UK market last week, according to data from Nielsen BookScan’s Total Consumer Market (TCM).
"Day one sales through Waterstones eclipsed all recent winners, selling considerably more than double the volume of each of the last decade’s winners," said Waterstones’ head of books Bea Carvalho of Orbital. "Wednesday’s sales saw an uplift of nearly 3,000% up on Tuesday’s, with demand growing throughout the week. At this stage, sales suggest that like for like it will be the bestselling Booker Prize winner through Waterstones."
Independent bookshops have also seen a boost in sales following the announcement of Harvey’s Booker Prize triumph, with the publisher saying that this increase has now exceeded 500%.
"It has the most gorgeous cover, is in paperback and is slim enough for us to persuade even the most Booker-averse customer to give it a go," said Tom Rowley, the owner of Backstory in Balham, South London. "Far more than all of that, of course, it is such a beautiful story and truly original—a space book that appeals as much to gritty realism lovers like me as to sci-fi nuts. Aptly enough, it is soaring."
Elle Moyse, bookseller at the Sevenoaks Bookshop, added: "We featured it as our Book of the Month in January this year and have seen consistent sales and good responses from customers. Of course interest has rocketed (space pun) after the big win, we’ve just had a big box arrive with half already allocated to customers."
Independent bookshops are also being offered the chance for an artist to visit their shops to paint Orbital window murals using glow-in-the-dark paint. Meanwhile, support for Waterstones’ Booker Library at the flagship Piccadilly store includes a competition to win Vintage’s complete library of its 17 Booker Prize-winners and tote bags for shoppers.