Walliams tops the charts with World’s Worst Teachers

David Walliams’ The World’s Worst Teachers (HarperCollins), illustrated by Tony Ross, has chalked up the duo’s 46th week in the UK Official Top 50 number one spot, selling 86,001 copies for £623,821 in its first three days on sale. This is Walliams’ third-biggest launch week volume to date, and his biggest outside of the Christmas gift-buying period, with only 2017’s Bad Dad and 2018’s The Ice Monster selling more copies straight out of the gate.

The World’s Worst Teachers is easily the fastest-selling of The World’s Worst… series, improving 10% in volume on last year’s The World’s Worst Children 3 and even shifting over 10,000 copies more than Fing did in its first week, earlier in 2019. This year is set to be an epic one for Walliams (even more so than usual), as he approaches £100m earned through BookScan. With The World’s Worst Teachers racking up his 46th overall weekly number one, a yet-to-be-announced autumn release could achieve a 50th and tip him over the nine-figure value threshold and help rack up his record annual sales.

The latest Walliams title also scored his 146th Children’s number one, ending the nine-week run of Jeff Kinney’s Diary of an Awesome Friendly Kid (Puffin). Walliams and Kinney have really locked down the kids’ number one across 2019—the last title not by either author to hold the top spot for more than one week was The Wonky Donkey (Scholastic), in early February.

Sophie Kinsella’s I Owe You One (Black Swan) swiped the Mass Market Fiction top spot, selling 15,337 copies to knock Peter Robinson’s Careless Love (Hodder & Stoughton) from the top. David Baldacci’s Long Road to Mercy (Pan) also entered the chart, in sixth place, with Stephen Fry’s Heroes swiping ninth.

While Pan Macmillan once again scored a non-fiction double, with Pinch of Nom and the Pinch of Nom Food Planner (both Bluebird) simultaneously rolling into the Hardback and Paperback Non-Fiction number ones for a third week running, HarperCollins also scored two number ones, with Gill Sims’ Why Mummy Doesn’t Give a ****! blue-streaking into the Original Fiction number one, alongside Walliams’ kids’ pole. Sims’ Why Mummy Swears racked up seven weeks in the category chart top spot last summer.

The print market bounced upwards 2.5% in value and 2.9% in volume week on week, to 3.03 million books sold for £25.9m. At the year's halfway point, volume is currently 2.5% up on 2018, with value up 4.5%. Average selling price is at £8.40 after six months, which is already 1p higher than 2017's a.s.p. for the year as a whole.