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Weldon 'positive' after PRH chart success
Penguin Random House (PRH) UK chief executive Tom Weldon has highlighted the "breadth and range" of its publishing, after the group saw its market share of the Christmas bestsellers reach new heights.
PRH divisions have eight of the top 10 books in the chart for the week ending 9th December, and 14 out of the top 20. By value its market share of the top 50 list of titles is 59%—well above its typical share of the Total Consumer Market of around 21%. In the same week last year, PRH had 11 out of the top 20 bestsellers, with a marketshare of the Top 50 by value of 47%.
Weldon said the success showed the importance of the Penguin Random House and its eight divisions to bookshops “up and down the country”. He added: “The charts demonstrate why Penguin Random House is important to the overall marketplace. It’s not just one bestseller; there are a range of very different books.”
Weldon pointed to books such as Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls by Elena Favilli and Francesca Cavallo, published by Particular (part of Penguin Press) and Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari (Vintage). Other bestsellers include 5 Ingredients - Quick & Easy Food by Jamie Oliver (Michael Joseph); Blue Planet II by James Honeyborne and Mark Brownlow (BBC, Ebury), La Belle Sauvage by Philip Pullman (PRH Children’s and David Fickling); Origin by Dan Brown (Bantam), At My Table by Nigella Lawson (Chatto); and Only Fools and Stories (Century, part of Cornerstone).
In total seven of PRH’s eight publishing divisions have books in the top 20. Weldon said the performance vindicated the strategy of making each division “distinctive and entrepreneurial”. He also highlighted the firm’s commitment to “keeping bestsellers going” praising the Harari title in particular: it was first published in 2015 and has now sold 479,060 copies (279,098 in 2017 alone).
He added: “Our books are working across all channels, and we are feeling pretty positive. There’s no silver bullet: you have to do lots of small things well, then it's a bit like a fly-wheel, you can build up this extraordinary momentum.”
In the period to 4th November before the peak Christmas season, PRH has seen its Nielsen BookScan sales grow by just over 1%. Bloomsbury is roaring ahead however, with sales up 12%, Bonnier Publishing is up 10%, and HarperCollins is up by 6.3%.
