Woodward’s 'Fear' trumps Wicks to number one

Bob Woodward’s Fear: Trump in the White House (Simon & Schuster) has usurped Joe Wicks’ Joe’s 30-Minute Meals after just one week. The second expose of the Trump administration to hit the UK number one spot this year sold 22,052 copies according to Nielsen BookScan’s Total Consumer Market.

Though Fear’s first week volume is fewer than 40% that of the first week in the charts for Michael Wolff’s Fire and Fury (Little, Brown) back in January, Woodward’s title posted an average selling price of £15.58—the second-biggest for a number one title since records began, runner-up to Jamie’s 30-Minute Meals (that other 30-Minute Meals) in the week leading up to Christmas 2010. Though Fire and Fury’s initial week on sale saw it hit £17.30 per book sold, it didn’t immediately hit the number one spot, thanks to a phenomenal surge by Tom Kerridge’s Lose Weight for Good (Absolute). Fear becomes only the fifth number one book ever to rack up a £15-plus a.s.p.

Donald Trump really is doing his bit for the UK book market at the moment—George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four (Penguin), which soared into the US number one after Trump’s inauguration in January 2017, has seen a UK boost of 140% in volume since the relatively authoritarian-free 2015, and last week bumped upwards 5% alongside Fear topping the chart. Former White House staffer (and US Apprentice contestant) Omarosa Manigault-Newman's Unhinged (S&S) also hit the Hardback Non-Fiction top 20 in mid-August. The upcoming Stormy Daniels book may just guarantee a fourth consecutive year of growth for market value.

This is also Simon & Schuster’s first number one title since Bruce Springsteen’s Born to Run, just under two years ago in October 2016, and is only the publisher’s second non-fiction title to swipe the top spot.

Wicks’ 30-Minute Meals (Bluebird) fell 41% in volume and three places to fourth—below 2018’s immovable king and queen, Adam Kay’s This is Going to Hurt (Picador) and Gail Honeyman’s Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine (Harper). Wicks also lost his Hardback Non-Fiction number one to Woodward, the only category top spot to change last week—Wilbur Smith’s Courtney’s War (Zaffre) held off a strong challenge from Kate Atkinson’s Transcription in the Original Fiction top 20, Eleanor Oliphant… claimed a 15th week as the Mass Market Fiction number one, and This is Going to Hurt charted top of the Paperback Non-Fiction chart for a 21st time.

Philip Pullman’s La Belle Sauvage (Penguin and David Fickling) dropped its anchor in the Children’s number one for a second week, with David Baddiel and Steven Lenton’s new entry Head Kid (HarperCollins Children's) and J K Rowling’s extremely-not-new Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (Bloomsbury) leapfrogging David Walliams and Tony Ross’ former number one The World’s Worst Children 3, pushing it down to sixth place. Kes Gray and Jim Field’s Oi Duck-Billed Platypus (Hodder Children's) entered the kids’ chart in ninth, as did the seasonally un-appropriate A Christmas Carol (a GCSE set text).

With Trump's help, the print market hit its highest value of the year so far, at £30.97m—though volume faltered week on week, dropping 2.2%. Average selling price was at £8.98, its highest since the week before Christmas 2017, when it was 4p higher.