Straight Bent

The Bookseller Fantasy League: THE FINAL

2010-01-20T12:07:00.009Z

FOURTEEN days or so ago, I began to build a time machine. And when that failed (apparently spreading Philadelphia all over my conservatory roof does not produce a wormhole) I considered simply cheating. But there's no escaping the fact that I have come a lowly eighth in The Bookseller's inaugural Fantasy League.

Despite a late surge, Victoria "I'm not shedding any tears over that" Gallagher and her The Triumphant Ten finished third overall. Tommy Tivnanananan's Some Books ARE Just for Christmas took second position. Which means...

Catherine Neilan's When the Cat's Away... is the winner of the 2009 The Bookseller Fantasy League.

Congratulations to her.

But how did she do it?

Well...having the two bestselling books over Christmas in your squad certainly helped (Guinness World Records and Poo Brown's The Lost Symbol), but they played for Tom Tivnan's team also.

The two The Bookseller hacks also shared the late Steig Larsson's The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo who Played With Fire and Then Kicked a Hornets' Nest the Stupid Girl.

The Tivmeister General picked Where's Stig?, the runaway "sleeper hit" of 2009 most definitely, but it couldn't compete with the double-whammy of Martina Cole's Hard Girls (sales were up a third on her previous hardback), and Willie Shawcross' Queen Mum biography picked by Neilan.

As such, Neilan's team scored an impressive 2,500,276 points, to Tivnan's 2,467,757.

But, just to prove we've all got room for improvement, even those at the top, the best team you could have picked would've scored you an eye-popping 3,003,582 points, and it would have looked a little something like this...

Never heard of him. Or it.

The Stats

The Stieg

The Secrets

From the Time Traveler woman

Big Ears' book

I neither know nor care.

Oooh, Vampire. Phwoar, sexy, buff. And all that. Innit.

The "I want a knighthood" book

The menu at Norwich FC

So, congrats to Catherine. Congrats to Tom and Victoria for being the best losers. And to everyone else (including myself), don't even bother entering next year—you are all clearly useless.

Til next time...

Ta Ta!

Horace.

The Bookseller Fantasy League: WEEK XVII

2009-12-29T12:53:00.002Z

The Bookseller's Victoria Gallagher is making a late charge up the bestseller lists. Her "The Triumphant Ten" leaps ahead of "Blake's Progress" this week. But is it a case of too little too late? Well, not really. Gallagher tops the "Team of the Week" list this week, so it's perhaps it is just a case of "too late".

Short of a miracle (and, hey, it is the time of year for one), the winner of this inaugural Fantasy League will be either Catherine Neilan's "When the Cat's Away..." or (and this is unlikely), Tom Tivnan's "Some Books ARE Just for Christmas". The rest of us will just have to battle for the two remaining Champions League places.

The Fuel-adjusted Leaderboard

2009-12-16T10:02:00.002Z

And there you have it. A "Fuel-adjusted" leaderboard—the "fuel", of course, being Dan Brown's The Lost Symbol. If this book didn't exist, Catherine Neilan's "When the Cat's Away..." would top the "Overall Leaderboard", which is incredibly different to the ACTUAL "Overall Leaderboard" which is topped by...err...Catherine Neilan's "When the Cat's Away...". Interestingly, however, Neill Denny's "History in the Making" takes second position thanks largely to strong sales from Guinness World Records, Jamie's America (although note that sales of Jamie's America are well down on the pukka pie's previous cookbooks), Where's Stig? (the definite "surprise" hit of the year, except the nine peeps playing picked it so perhaps it doesn't really come as that much of a surprise), Andrew Marr's The Making of Modern Britain, and one of the other big successes, Willy Shawcross' Queen Mum: The Biography.

The Bookseller Fantasy League: WEEK SIXTEEN

2009-12-16T10:01:00.005Z

The Roy Castle Guinness Book of World Records 2010 but of the Decade, Actually, but Published in 2009, Which is Confusing was the bestselling book at UK book retailers last week, not that The Bookseller's Victoria Gallagher cares too much. She tops the "Team of the Week" chart this week without it. Her "Triumphant Ten" scored 187,441 points last week, a mere 238 points more than the aTom Bomb's "Some Books ARE Just for Christmas".

This week's "Heatseekers" chart is topped by Morgan Adebayo's "Late Bloomers" thanks to the boost in sales enjoyed by Jeremy "The Power" Clarkson's Driven to Distraction. Serena Alam's "Team Serena" takes second position in the list, while Ian Dunn's "Wolf Books" sits third.

The "Overall Leaderboard" continues to be boringly topped by Catherine Neilan's "When the Cat's Away..." But Tom Tivnan is now just 66,336 points behind. It sounds a lot. It is—especially with just two weeks left to go.

Tom and Catheine's teams have now both clocked up more than TWO MILLION points since the start of the Fantasy League, thanks largely, of course, to Poo Brown's The Lost Symbol...which is why I've decided to produce a "Fuel-adjusted Leaderboard", stripping out The Lost Symbol's influence from each team that has it, and devising an incredibly complex mathematical formula to work out replacement sales points based on similarly-priced titles and snowfall and hand spans and blah de blah de blah de blah. I'll reveal all tomorrow (weather permitting) but it may result in The Bookseller's editor-in-chief, Neill Denny, suddenly finding himself at the top of the charts.

Probably not, actually, but hey ho.

The Bookseller Fantasy League: WEEK FIFTEEN

2009-12-09T15:00:00.007Z

With so many Christmas parties to attend last week, I neglected to write any copy alongside last week's charts (based on the previous week's sales). I would apologise to y'all, but I had far too much fun, and, to be perfectly honest with you all, I don't regret going to any of them. Anyway, perhaps due to my outrageous behaviour, I haven't received any invites to any parties this week. So I am left with nothing to do—except predict the downfall of Catherine Neilan's "When the Cat's Away...", as she hasn't been the "Team of the Week" for two consecutive weeks now. Which is fab news for the rest of us.

The Bookseller's senior reporter, Neilan, could only manage a paltry fifth (5th!) place in this week's "Team of the Week" chart (based on last week's book sales in the UK according to Nielsen BookScan who measure sales from approximately 8,500 UK book retailers—impressive).

The Bookseller's once-junior, now just-plain reporter, Victoria Gallagher sits at the top of the "Team of the Week" chart. And, perhaps most impressively, her team, "The Triumphant Ten" doesn't even include the bestselling book of last week—Guinness World Records. CRAZY! Instead, Gallagher got to the top of the charts thanks to solid 30,000-plus sales from PJ & Duncan's Ooh! What a Lovely Pair (of complete and utter tits), Poo Brown's The Lost Symbol (come on, someone. Find the fuggin Symbol and we can FINALLY get rid of it), "Top Gear" spin-off Where's Stig? (well, he's on page one for a start), and a massive 50,000-plus sale from mad Norwich FC fan Delia Smith's Delia's Happy Christmas (well, Delia, it might be a happy Christmas for you, you kitsch rich "sausage" but the rest of us are broker than an Icelandic banker). :::GROWL:::

Second-sitting Lauren Ace had Delia in her "Lacey Tiger" team of 10, along with Guinness World Records, while The Bookseller's Tom "features" Tivnan's "Some Books ARE just for Christmas" takes third position thanks to Brown, the Stig (the "Top Gear" one, not the dead Swedish author of the Millennium trilogy, duh!), and Guinness.

Yes people, FINALLY, after weeks of waiting (and in part thanks to Borders' "closing down sales") book sales finally enjoyed a fantastic fillip last week. And Catherine Neilan's reign at the summit of the "Overall Leaderboard" may come to an end. What a week, what a week.

Anyway...
This week's "Heatseekers" list is topped by Mr Inch's "Mr Inch's Books" thanks to Delia while the cookery queen is also responsible for ex-The Bookseller bod Stephanie Atha's appearance in second position. Louise Shawcroft takes third position thanks principally because of the sales boosts received by the Stieg (Larsson, not the silent "Top Gear" one), Cecelia Ahern and Julia Donaldson's emotional epic, Tabby McTat.

Lady Neilan's lead at the top of the "Overall Leaderboard" has been cut by 9,722 points (roughly 10 1/2 percent) in just TWO WEEKS. Which, by my calculations, means her reign at the summit of the charts should be over by May—approximately FIVE MONTHS after this game finishes. HURRAH! Tom Tivnan and Nadine Rocha stay second and third respectively while Blake Simonnson moves into fourth because I've had a bit of a mare and dropped two places, while Victoria Gallagher and Nicola Chin both climb the (or into the) Top 10.

The Bookseller Fantasy League: WEEK FOURTEEN

2009-12-03T17:41:00.001Z

The Bookseller Fantasy League: WEEK THIRTEEN

2009-11-25T10:01:00.006Z

Christmas has FINALLY started for the book trade. The ascent of hardback non-fiction to the upper eschalons of the bestseller lists that I moaned incessantly wasn't happening last week, has finally happened this week. Or, well, Christmas technically started last week as it was actually the previous week before that, that it hadn't happened, because I report in the present tense about chart movements in this week's charts which are based on last week's sales. But, of course, Christmas started ages ago when all the shops crossed out "Halloween" from all the crap on the shelves and inserted the word "Christmas" instead. So what I mean is, this week I can say that Christmas has started for at least one retail sector based on last week's sales and that the previous week it hadn't started for this sector but that for all retail sectors it probably actually started about a month ago really. That's cleared that up, then.

There were some impressive sales boosts last week for the likes of Poo Brown (apparently some peeps haven't got a copy yet), Peter Kay (thanks to his "Children in Need" antics), Ant & Dec (thanks to the new series of "I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here!"), (thanks to the BBC), Andrew MarrJack Dee (thanks to something), Jo Brand (thanks to something else). It is all very exciting, isn't it? Knowing that Santa Claus himself is out in the bookshops of Britain buying celebrity memoirs. I was sure I saw him grimacing when maneuvering three wonky trolleys full of Justin Lee Collins' Good Times! towards the till at ASDA. What shocked me most, of course, was not the fact that Kris Kringle was shopping in ASDA (their discounts are deeply enticing), but that some people had actually put Justin Lee Collins on their Christmas "Wish Lists". Idiots.

Ten teams scored more than 100,000 sales points last week and, would you believe it, all ten of them make the "Team of the Week" Top 10 list. I've grown incredibly tired of talking about Catherine Neilan's chart superstardom so let's skip top spot this week and look at the performance of all the little people... well...six other The Bookseller reports make the Top 10, including me.

Thanks to Ant & Dec's Ooh! What a Lovely Pair flying from the shelves in the thousands and thousands, and thanks to Jack Dee's Thanks for Nothing flying from the shelves in the less but still impressive just thousands, Yoshi Bennayashi's The Music of the Primes is this week's red-hot "Heatseeker"—followed by Gav's Next Read (thanks to Andrew Marr's The Making of Modern Britain and Dan Brown's The Lost Symbol, principally) and @TheUncle1's Born Yesterday (thanks to The Lost Symbol and the indispensable Robert Pattinson Annual - you know, the "Twilight" vampire guy).

The "Overall Leadboard" continues to be topped by She-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named in a week when each of the teams in positions two through nine tread water. Nielsen BookScan expert Varchas Doshi's "Double Jamesons" slips out of the Top 10, to be replaced by Nicola Chin's "Read This and Weep". Neill Denny's "History in the Making" continues to top the sub-chart known as the "No, I didn't pick The Lost Symbol League".

The Bookseller Fantasy League: WEEK XII

2009-11-18T10:13:00.008Z

For a long time, I went to bed early. Sometimes, when I blew out the oil lamp, my eyes would close so quickly that I had not even time to say to myself "I wonder if I set the alarm?" or check the curtains to see whether or not my forceful blow had accidentally sprayed scorching hot oil all over them and set my house on fire. And I would awake with a start, some considerable time after I should have stirred from my slumber, to discover that I no longer had any eyebrows, or any other hair for that matter. And that my dear old pussycat, Timmy, looked and smelled like crispy duck...

These days, however, I do not go to bed early. Instead, I go to bed in the EARLY hours. Because I find it incredibly hard to get to sleep when my mind is racing with questions such as "Why on Earth didn't I pick Where's Stig??", "Why on Earth did I spend £1.1 million on John Grisham's Ford County?" and "Will there ever be an end to Catherine Neilan's reign at the summit of the top of the 'Overall Leaderboard'?"

Of course, the answer to the first two questions is the same: "Because I'm an idiot". The answer to the third question is, quite obviously, "42". Whereby the number "42" represents, in the words of General Sir Anthony Cecil Hogmanay Melchett VC DSO KCB, "a pig-headed unwillingness to look facts in the face".

***

Basically, for those of you that don't know, the UK book market has been turned upside down in recent weeks (click for the low-down and some humorous "Comments" by anonymous readers and The Bookseller's own useless-at-fantasy-bookselling charts editor, Philip Stone). History dictated that October would mark the month when book-buyers up and down the land would start spending millions and millions each week on thousands upon thousands of copies of hardback non-fiction books. Except that this year, well, umm..., that kinda hasn't happened.

By this point last year, Paul O'Grady's At My Mother's Knee... had sold almost 275,000 copies, while the celebrity memoirs of Michael Parkinson, Julie Walters and Dawn French had sold 480,000 copies between them. This year, the bestselling celebrity memoir is Ant & Dec's Ooh! What a Lovely Pair, with sales of 110,000 copies. Second on the list is Peter Kay's Saturday Night Peter, with sales of 90,000—half the 180,000 figure that his first memoir, The Sound of Laughter, had posted by this point in 2006. Even Guinness World Records, guilty-pleasure Jeremy "The Power" Clarkson, and Jamie "Pukka" Oliver are struggling to match last year's performance.

Conversely, and (IMHO) partly because of it, the fiction market is performing better-than-expected—thanks to big works by some big authors such as Poo Brown, Terry Discworld, MartinEastender Cole, Stephen "You're Giving me Nightmares!" King, ScarPatricia Cornwell, Hilary "Man Booker winner" Mantel, and The Stieg Larsson to name but seven. And the kids market ain't doing too shabbily at all, what with that lass Stephenie Meyer and all (well, I'd much prefer the yoof of today spent their pocket money on teen vampire love trash than crack cocaine, but then I am an ol' fuddy-duddy).

Anyway...what all the above means is that the inaugural The Bookseller Fantasy League is WIDE OPEN. Anything can happen.

Oh, what I mean is, "anything can happen"..."except anyone other than Catherine Neilan and her 'When the Cat's Away...' winning" (she's had another good week)...

Yup, thanks to solid sales of Guinness World Records, Poo Brown's The Lost Symbol and Martina Cole's Hard Girls, Neilan's "When the Cat's Away..." is once again the "Team of the Week". And just like last week, Tom "Boston" Tivnan's "Some Books ARE Just for Christmas" takes second position and Nicola "Chinny, Chin" Chin "Chinny"'s "Read This and Weep" takes third.

This week's "Heatseekers" list is topped by Len Whiteread thanks, principally, to the release of Stephen "Horror" King's Under the Dome—a novel in which a small town finds itself cut-off from reality. He must've visited Doncaster. Patterson Fielder's "Door Stoppers" takes third position for the same reason, while Morgan Adebayo's "Late Bloomers" sits second thanks to a strong full week in the bookshops for Andre "I took drugs. I'm an American sportsman—what did you expect?!" Agassi's memoir, Open.

The gap between Neilan and Tivan at the summit of the "Overall Leaderboard" is now an eye-popping 84,010 points/sales. Still, not quite as horrific as the 490,243-point gap between Len Whiteread's "If you're above me you suck" in 32nd position, and Neill Denny's "History in the Making" in 33rd position. Yep, Whiteread did pick Poo Brown. Yep, The Bookseller's editor-in-chief Neill Denny did not—and therefore has to settle for top spot in the "I'm too snobbish to have picked Dan Brown" sub-league — a league that I like to call "The Losers League".

The Bookseller Fantasy League: WEEK ELEVEN

2009-11-11T09:35:00.009Z

FINALLY, there's some light at the end of the tunnel. There's some green shoots on arid land. The good ship Hope has rounded the Cape of Despair. The camper van to nowhere has taken a detour to the Town of Good Prospects. Yes, fellow Fantasy Leaguers, The Bookseller's Catherine Neilan and her team, "When the Cat's Away...", has FINALLY showed a sign of fallibility. I kid you not. And "minus three point eight percent" is my proof - her week on week points decline. Hurrah! All hail Microsoft Excel!

Of course, it represents but a scratch on a mahoosive tank (not built by the British), but it is HOPE nonetheless. And what is a world without HOPE, people? Well, it is a world probably run by Richard Dawkins. A hideous thought. But it is HOPE, fellow Fantasy Leaguers. HOPE!

The -3.8% decline is not strong enough to knock her off of the top of the "Overall Leaderboard", or even prevent her from topping this week's "Team of the Week" list, which you will find below (click to enlarge, Fantasy Leaguers. Click. To. Enlarge)...

Last week's bestselling hardbacks in the UK were still the irrepresible Guinness World Records, which enjoyed a 15% boost in sales week on week, and the irrepresible Dan Brown's The Lost Symbol - currently in a good ol' cat fight with Martina Cole's Hard Girls over bragging rights on pole position within Hardback Fiction. Catherine Neilan has all three.
Tom Tivnan's "Some Books ARE Just for Christmas" enjoyed a 5.3% boost in points week on week, thanks to Guinness, "Top Gear" spin-off, Where's Stig?, and ITV spin-off Harry Hill's TV Burp Book. Meanwhile, two of The Bookseller's advertising crew, Nicola "Romford" Chin and her "Read This and Weep" and Marzipan Ghiselli and her "Christmas Stockings", take third and fourth positions in the "Team of the Week" list. I dunno, you can't separate them inside of work, you can't separate them outside of it.

This week's "Heatseekers" list is topped by Mark Merryweather and his "Reality Welcome" thanks largely to a "The X Factor" boost for JLS and their memoir, Our Croydon Story So Far, innit. Ian Dunn's "Wolf Books" takes second on the list thanks to solid performances from the Top Gear Annual, Jezza Clarkson's Driven to Distraction and the aforementioned Harry Hill. The Bookseller's charts editor and human dartboard Phil Stone takes third with his "Promotion Material" - a team that includes Guinness, JLS, and Where's Stig? as well as dad's favourite John Grisham's Ford County.

There's no change at the top of the "Overall Leaderboard" this week. And no change at second position. Or third. Or fourth. Or even fifth. Catherine "Wheel" Neilan still tops the list with an eye-popping 69,483 lead. BUT DON'T FORGET ABOUT MY ESSAY "On Hope" AT THE BEGINNING OF THIS ENTRY FANTASY LEAGUERS!

Tom Tivnan takes second position, I sit third, Nadine Rocha takes fourth and The Bookseller's pro-Waterstone's reporter, Graeme "the works of Richard Curtis are AMAZING" Neill, takes fifth.

The Bookseller's supplements editor - by which I mean she provides the entire Bookseller staff with daily rations of Cod Liver oil - Hannah "Dinky" Davies climbs two places in the Top 10 thanks to the sales boosts received by both Guinness and Jodi Picoult's latest girly drama job, Picture Perfect. But she faces a yawning chasm of 20,239 points/sales to Nielsen BookScan expert Carol Brownlee in seventh position.

Shazbot! Did I just call "20,239" copies a "yawning chasm"? Cripes.

HOPE, fellow Fantasy Leaguers, HOPE.

Under the Spotlight — The #1s, Where Are They Now?!

2009-11-04T11:40:00.005Z

Week Ten has come and gone. We're in Week Eleven. And then there's another Seven Weeks after that. So, what better time to doff caps to the exclusive bunch of people who've topped the "Overall Leaderboard" to date.

First up was Sally Oliphant's "Usborne Publicity", thanks to strong sales from the likes of Philippa Gregory's The White Queen, Michelle Paver's Ghost Hunter and Jamie Oliver's Jamie's America. Sadly, however, she didn't pick Dan Brown's The Lost Symbol—so is now hanging around 36th position in the charts (or fourth position in the "I didn't pick Dan Brown" list).

The Bookseller's editor-in-chief-Geronimo-of-Bedonkohe-Apache Neill Denny sits top of the "No Brown stains here" list. His "History in the Making" has been scoring a consistent 55,000-60,000 points each week for the past six weeks, thanks to solid sales from the likes of Guinness World Records, Jamie's America, William "I want a knighthhod for this" Shawcross' biography of the Queen's mummy, and "Top Gear" spin-off, Where's Stig?.

Back at the top of the list, Serena Alam's "Team Serena" took top spot from Sally Oliphant thanks chiefly to Dan Brown's The Lost Symbol, Jamie's America and Sebastian Faulks' A Week in December. But it was a position she held for just a week as The Bookseller's newly-married events bod, Sal Greetham and her "Sal's Books", took over pole position following solid sales from The Lost Symbol, and sales from Jamie's America and Shawcross' Queen Mum biography.

Thanks to good performances from Maeve Binchy's The Return Journey and Audrey Niffeneggergerergger's Her Fearful Symmetry, "Sal's Books" topped the "Overall Leaderboard" for two weeks but ultimately gave up her position to current chart-topper Catherine Neilan and her "When the Cat's Away...". Neilan has now topped the "Overall Leaderboard" for four consecutive weeks, thanks to Guinness World Records, The Lost Symbol, Stieg Larsson's The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets' Nest, Martina Cole's Hard Girls, and Shawcross' Queen Mum love in.

The Bookseller Fantasy League: WEEK TEN

2009-11-04T10:56:00.011Z

Typical. Something interesting finally happens, and then something boring results. Dan Brown is finally poked from his lofty tree-top position by both Guiness World Records and Martina "Chim chiminey" Cole's latest East End thriller, Hard Girls (on oxymoron, surely?), but it serves only to strengthen the grip The Bookseller's Catherine "ran out of nicknames" Neilan has at the top of "The Bookseller Fantasy League" charts. All three of those books sold more than 30,000 copies at UK bookshops last week and Catherine's "When the Cat's Away..." was the only team to include all three.

Which meant the rest of us were buggered. And Catherine's lead over the 70-strong chasing pack is now a considerable 49,979 points. It may not sound a lot (Catherine's lead is, after all, a mere four percent in comparison to Tom "media whore" Tivnan's "Some Books ARE Just for Christmas") but Kiran Desai's excellent Man Booker winning The Inheritance of Loss didn't manage to sell that many copies in hardback!

I'm still third in the Overall Leaderboard but the horrific reality is that six of my books are under-performing and I regret picking John Grisham's Ford County. Good novelists only write short-stories when they're washed-up dry-of-ideas over-the-hills. What was the Grish thinking!? And, more importantly, WTF was I thinking in picking it!?

"Team of the Week" this week is, of course, Catherine's "When the Cat's Away..." while The Bookseller's Ad Bod Nicola Chin's "Read This and Weep" takes second position overall, thanks to Martina Cole. David Stevens' "Fantastic Fiction" takes third. Thanks to Martina Cole.

In the "Heatseekers" chart, Ellie Levenson's "Viva Livre" enjoyed a 174.2% week on week boost. Thanks to Martina Cole. Amy Nielsen's "Girl Power" doubled its points week on week. Thanks to Martina Cole. Mary Edwards' "A Woman Wot Reads" received a 91.9% boost. Thanks to Patricia Cornwell. Ha! Only joking. It was thanks to Martina Cole.

Tune in next week to discover whether Martina Cole makes it to number one. Or Martina Cole stays level at number two. Or Martina Cole slips into third position. Or perhapsMartina Cole falls out of the Top 10 altogether. Or maybe Dan Brown will go back to number one, and I can then poke out both of my eyes with a rusty fork and set fire to my hair.

The Bookseller Fantasy League: WEEK NINE

2009-10-28T10:10:00.011Z

Well, the good news (at least for the stupid among us), is that although Poo Brown's The Lost Symbol remains the bestselling book in the Kingdom of the United, an end to the yank's reign at the summit of our bestseller lists (cripes, did I just go a little Nick Griffin?) is in sight. It sold little more than 30,000 copies last week, which I think you'll agree is pathetic when you consider that, upon release, it sold 550,000 copies in five days. In fact, if you were to chart The Lost Symbol's weekly sales on a graph,it would look a little something like this...

Which I think you'll agree, is lovely.

What is not lovely is the worrying fact that Hardback Non-fiction sales seem drastically down on last year. Ant & Dec's Ooh! What a Lovely Pair was the only slebmemoir to sell more than 10,000 copies last week which is terrible news on largely two levels. One) Last year, the memoirs of Parky, Julie Walters, Paul O'Grady, Dawn French, Alan Carr and even Jonathan Woss (after friggin' Sachsgate!) all managed to sell more than 10,000 copies. Two) Ant & Dec (yes, ANT AND FRIGGIN' DEC!) are the authors of the bestselling memoir in this supposedly fine country.

I have therefore decided to elope to America, whereupon I hope to set up a much finer version of this fair game. At least in the States Poo Brown ain't number one no more. Jeff Kinney's (who?!) Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Dog Days (what?!), knocked Poo Brown off top spot last week with a 500,000-plus weekly sale, having outsold The Lost Symbol five to one!

Incidentally, I take the Michael slightly out of Jeff Kinney. But I have in fact read his Diaries of a Wimpy Kid and they are superb. If you click here, you'll be taken to Kinney's Amazon.co.uk page where you can browse his splendid literature and "click-to-buy". I would post a link to the Waterstones.com website but chances are, what with the hub and all, that you might not get your ordered copy until February 2013- two months after the world will end (according to the freaks).

But before I nip across the Atlantic (and before the world ends) there's the small matter of telling y'all how badly y'all done this week...

For the second week in a row, The Bookseller senior reporter Catherine "When I'm sick in the toilet bowl I prefer to be" Neilan's When the Cat's Away... tops the "Team of the Week" chart thanks to the strong sales of The Lost Symbol, Guinness World Records and James "machine" Patterson's four hundred and twenty-fifth novel this year, I, Alex Cross. The Bookseller's Features Editor Tom "I went to Wemb-er-ley to watch my beloved New England Patriots on Sunday" Tivnan's Some Books ARE Just for Christmas takes second position thanks to Poo Brown and Guinness, and backed up by some solid sales from Stieg "Dead" Larsson's The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets' Nest (bad idea, huh?) and the "Top Gear" Where's Wally-esque (Waldo-esque if you're a yank) spin-off Where's Stig? Blake Simonnson's Blake's Progress (oh, and how I yearn for more William Hogarth puns on the internet) takes third for similar reasons.

Marcus Santi sits top of this little list as his his Middle of the Road contains both I, Alex Cross and Katie "Jordan" Price's Standing Out—a book that shares her fashion tips. Like how to spend thousands of pounds on getting big boobies. Well, Ms Price, I have big boobies and I didn't need to go under any knife. I simply restricted myself to a diet of fine ales and Double Sausage and Egg McMuffins.

Six of the top 10 teams in the "Overall Leaderboard" are managed by The Bookseller reporters. Two of the top 10 (Carol Brownlee and Varchas Doshi) work for sales analysts Nielsen BookScan. One of the top 10 is Blake (see above) and the other is called Nadine Rocha. Rocha has been steadily rising the "Overall Leaderboard" in recent weeks. If only she hadn't wasted money on Nick Hornby's Juliet, Naked (which has absolutely TANKED, in my humble opinion) then perhaps she might be top. Oh well. Hindsight is a wonderful thing. Just ask me, I wasted £0.4m on James May's Car Fever. However, his new TV series, James May's Toy Stories has just started on the Beeb. Maybe, just maybe, the floppy-haired git might just get his arse into "Top Gear" and "drive" some sales. Ha, ha ha. See what I did there?

I'm here all week.

Except I'm not.

My flight leaves in two hours.

Ta ta!

The Bookseller Fantasy League: WEEK EIGHT

2009-10-26T13:43:00.003Z

Charting Your Performance: WEEKS ONE to SEVEN

2009-10-15T13:45:00.002+01:00

The very best of luck in trying to find yourself on this monstrosity!

The Bookseller Fantasy League: WEEK SEVEN

2009-10-14T14:14:00.009+01:00

Do you know what the three bestselling books were at UK bookshops last week? No? I'll tell you: Dan "poo" Brown's The Lost Symbol, Terry "Discworld" Pratchett's The Unseen Academicals and Guinness "Book of" World Records. And do you know who is the only person in the inaugural The Bookseller Fantasy League to have all three in his team? No? I'll tell you: ME!

Mwahahahahahahahhahaha...
Hahahahaha...

Hahaha...

Haha...

Ha...

:::ahem:::

Yes folks, I, Horace Bent, The Bookseller magazine's esteemed diarist, am the manager of this week's "Team of the Week"—the performances of my dazzling trio giving me a boot up the ol' charts. Get in! :::gloat gloat:::

Nielsen BookScan "student" Varchas Doshi's Double Jamesons takes second position in the "Team of the Week" charts thanks to Poo Brown, Pratchett Man and The Stieg (Larsson), while Tom "the Tivmeister" Tivnan takes third.

Thanks largely to Ozzy "I bit the head of a live bat, etc, etc" Osbourne's memoir I am Ozzy (which I'm sure is incredibly coherent), Mark Merryweather is this week's Heatseeker number one, while Nielsen BookScan head of important things, Reeta Windsor's Pet (Any Sort) takes second in the list with an impressive 76.8% growth. Nice. Morgan Adebayo's Late Bloomers sits third on the list but is still rock bottom of the Overall Leaderboard (whoops)...

Talking of the Overall Leaderboard... We have a new leader! Her name is Catherine Neilan and she's The Bookseller's senior reporter (one of two). She's got The Lost Symbol, The Stieg (Larsson) and Guinness World Records in her squad. And two of her books (including a biggie - Martina Cole's Hard Girls) are yet to hit the shelves.

Shazbot.

Second on the list, and suffering a radical drop in sales week on week (she peaked too soon!) is The Bookseller's events chief Sally Greetham and her Sal's Books. She finally came back into the office following her Honeymoon. For a day. Before jetting off to Frankfurt for the Frankfurt Book Fair. Poor woman.

Tom "Features" Tivnan's Some Books ARE just for Christmas takes third. He was the only person to pick Patricia Scanlan's Coming Home for his team of 10. He must know something we all don't. Like how on Earth anyone is going to ignore the celeb memoirs and the Dan Brown this Christmas and instead pluck for the 16th novel by a Dubliner.

The Bookseller Fantasy League: WEEK SIX

2009-10-07T16:35:00.014+01:00

October 1st was "Super Thursday" for those of you that didn't know (shame on you!) when around 800 spandangly new hardbacks hit UK bookshop shelves — around 10 times the daily average. A few peeps at Bookseller Towers appeared on "Drive Time" and Breakfast radio shows to talk about it. You might have heard one of us. Not me though. I didn't get "the call". Just for the record, I'm not in the least bit friggin' bitter, ALRIGHT! So let's stop going on about it.

According to book sales statisticians Nielsen BookScan, an impressive 16 books with October 1st-or-after publication dates sold more than 5,000 copies at UK book retailers last week. With all those books sitting on the shelves, how could one possibly choose which one (there's a recession on) to buy?! Well, W H Smith and Tesco helped out, by pointing us in the general direction of the chubby Boltonian Peter Kay's Saturday Night Peter, which both were selling for little more than a humble five pound note. W H Smith also offered chubby Yorkshireman Jeremy "The Power" Clarkson's Driven to Distraction at silly discount, as well as Guinness World Records AND the inseparable TV duo Ant & Dec's Ooh! What a Lovely Pair. The result being that all of 'em enjoyed solid sales last week.

Also discounted by more than 40% on average last week were Terry "Alzheimers" Pratchett's football-in-the-Discworld novel, The Unseen Academicals, and Stieg "dead" Larsson's The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets' Nest. Larsson's thriller, the final part in his Millennium crime trilogy, sold an absolutely PHENOMENAL 34,000 copies last week—smashing not only Larsson's own previous sales records but that of his indie publisher, Quercus. It was the second bestselling book in the UK last week—one behind the irrepressible Dan Brown's The Lost Symbol. Well, I say "irrepressible"—Brown's sales are sliding each week. His reign at number one may well be over this time next week.

Probably not, but I live in hope—I'm bored talking about him.

This week's Team of the Week is Nielsen BookScan bod Varchas Doshi's Double Jamesons, thanks to largely to Dan Brown, Terry Pratchett and Stieg Larsson, but backed up by some "ok-for-a-girl" performances from and Maeve Binchy's The Return Journey and Audrey Niffenegger's Her Fearful Symmetry.

Thanks to Brown, Larsson, the Queen Mum and Guinness World Records, The Bookseller's Catherine Neilan takes second position ahead of The Bookseller's features editor, Tom Tivnan. "Audi", as he is affectionately known at Bookseller Towers (not because he's the epitome of German luxury and reliability, but simply because his initials are "T.T.") manages a team with one of the best names in the entire competition—Some Books ARE Just for Christmas—and, because he picked the book Baboon Metaphysics (a collection of some of the funniest nominees for The Bookseller/Diagram Prize for Oddest Book Title of the Year award which I run) I am tempted to call this whole Bookseller Fantasy League competition to a halt and declare him the winner now.

Thanks to Ceceila "PS I Love You" Ahern's The Book of Tomorrow and Frankie "Glaswegian Gobsh*te" Boyle's My Shit Life So Far, Dee Smith's Bloody Foreigners (Tory I presume?) takes top spot in the Heatseekers list thanks to a week on week sales boost in the thousands. Morgan Adebayo and his Late Bloomers takes second position off the back of solid sales for Clarkson and Jo "big" Brand's Look Back in Hunger. Louise Shawcroft's Horace Bent's My Real Father takes third thanks largely to the Stieg.

There ain't no positional changes at the top of the Overall Leaderboard week on week although The Bookseller's own events-girl-at-large Sal Greetham's Sal's Books extends her lead over the chasing pack to a sweet 25,000 points (sales). She's still on her honeymoon so I doubt very much whether she knows this. Or indeed, even cares. Do they have the internet in Bali? Also, I notice Horace Bent's Get Bent has stormed into the Top 10. Which is nice.

So...there you have it.

Tune in next week to discover whether Dan Brown loses his bottle—maybe the Freemasons (posing as Congressmen) will steal it in order to keep secret the fact that Mary Magdalene and Jesus had a baby son called Dave, who later went on to invent the corkscrew, only to have his ideas stolen by a group of rebel Monks posing as hod dog vendors that belonged to a Union secretly developing plans to overthrow the United States Government using eggs from organically-reared chickens owned by the Pope.

Under the Spotlight - Graeme Neill's Inglorious Booksellers

2009-10-05T14:26:00.005+01:00

My name is Graeme Neill. I've been retail reporter at The Bookseller for the past two and half years. Many moons ago, I was a till jockey at Waterstone's wonderful Royal Avenue branch (in sunny Belfast) where I waited for an opportunity to try and flog Murakami to anyone that moved. I later covered it burning to a cinder as a reporter, which wasn't the most comfortable piece of news writing I have ever done.

Horace has asked me to justify my ludicrous choices, which have somehow seen me have the best performing team of last week. Given my early success, I will probably follow the lead of Hull City's bonkers manager Phil Brown. Phil, after a cracking start to the Premiership last season, got ideas above his station, went bonkers, grew a crap beard and generally considered himself to be a lot better than he thinks he is as his team utterly collapsed on the field. Those who know me may feel I have an overinflated opinion of myself as is.

Anyway. To business:

1. Dan Brown - Honestly, who in their right mind decided that this was not a Christmas hit? Well, The Bookseller's in house chart expert Philip Stone for one. But with the powerhouse publicity machine of Random House, a Dan Brown movie out this year and everyone's love of the occult, it was easily my first pick.
2. Guinness World Records - Possibly the great unknown publishing success of this decade. While everyone has got massively excited about JK Rowling and Dan Brown, Guinness has been selling like, um, booze on St Patrick's Day every single Christmas. A corking piece of publishing and it's a scientific fact that the elderly can't pass a copy without buying it for their grandkids. There's no proof for this but it is scientific fact. To llamas!
3. Zac Efron Yearbook - look at him. He's dreamy. Admittedly it's not performing as well as I imagined but I'm hoping in the weeks coming up to Christmas, it will be a last-ditch present. For the record, I have never seen High School Musical.
4. Miley Cyrus Yearbook - A man who is turning 30 in two months cannot write about Miley Cyrus. NEXT.
5. The Wild Things - A bit of a gamble, this. I was blown away by Spike Jonze's trailer, with the best use of Arcade Fire. Seriously, stop reading this and go watch it.
***
Brilliant, isn't it? I'm thinking this could appeal to that quirky Waterstone's/Borders hipster twentysomething demographic, especially given Dave Eggers' involvement. The book is MASSIVE in the United States but I have to admit, I'm unsure how it will do over here.
6. Ashes to Ashes - I'm Irish so England's Ashes win was a complete and utter non-event for me. God help me if England actually won the World Cup. I'd probably burst into flames in horror of the months of overstated jingoism that would await. However, Flintoff is admittedly a great cricketer (apparently), one hell of a character and his recent decision to retire from Test Cricket should give this title more runs in what is a crowded market for cricket titles.
7. Breaking the Rules - It's Barbara Taylor Bradford, she's a LEGEND in this field and hopefully the return of Emma Harte will enthuse fans of BTB.
8. Robert Pattinson - Have you ever seen Twilight? It was honestly one of the worst films I have ever seen and I have sat through Battlefield Earth and Velvet Goldmine. However, a good friend of mine, a fiercely intelligent and cynical English teacher regresses to a teenage girl any time Pattinson is mentioned. If a 29 year old can get that excited, god help what the legions of Twilight fans will do to sales of this book.
9. Queen Elizabeth - Still seen as a national treasure, the Queen Mum has benefited from a masterful publicity campaign and is one of the great big hitting serious non fiction titles of this autumn. Not as Heat magazine focused as Ant and Dec or Peter Kay but the type of people who would be interested in the Queen Mum are the type of people who buy books.
10. El Nino - El gamble. Horace thinks this will ultimately cost me success in this year's competition. I'm not so sure. Carra did fantastically well last year and was actually a fascinating and forthright sports book. El Nino is not that kind of book. Torres is not outspoken and opinionated. He is simply a fantastic footballer and the book capitalises on this. Why I think it will succeed is Liverpool fans' adulation of our best number 9 since Fowler and it is a great book, chock full of photos of Fernando looking gorgeous. It's an easy present for the Liverpool fan in your life and it is a strong title in a surprisingly empty field of football biographies. Fingers crossed.

The Bookseller Fantasy League: WEEK FIVE

2009-10-02T11:08:00.005+01:00

Another week, another week of big sales for Dan “cheque please” Brown. But his freemasons-and-Washington-DC toilet book (read, then wipe) “only” sold 175,000 copies last week (according to magnificent book statisticians Nielsen BookScan). But that is, like, a 70% decline on the previous week. Which is why I am going to make the following statement: That’s CRAP Mr Brown. Bottled it already? Sitting so high in the bestseller lists giving you nosebleeds is it? You should be ashamed of yourself Mr Bestselling-Writer-In-The-Whole-World. I’ve gone right of you, sonny Jim. I kid you not. Wished I’d never picked your ridiculous book for my fantasy bookshelf*.

*Not true – otherwise I’d be hanging around the bottom of the league with all the silly people.

Anyway…

Team of the Week

The Bookseller’s newly (deservedly so) promoted (at work) roving senior (in role, not age) reporter, Mr Graeme Neill, is the proud manager of this week’s Team of the Week. Dan Brown scored him most of his points, but another 50,000 came largely from Guinness World Records – the second bestselling book at UK bookshops last week (if you can call the likes of Sainsbury’s and Asda “bookshops” that is) – and yet more strong sales from Willie “I’ll get a knighthood for this” Shawcross’ biography of the Queen’s late mother. Fernando “I should’ve signed for Man Citeh Torres’ memoir also scored him some points, but not as many as he would’ve liked I’m sure (see last week’s entry, below).
Brown, Guinness and Queen Liz also helps The Bookseller’s other newly-promoted senior reporter, Catherine Neilan, and BookScan boffin Carol Brownlee (who misses the Team of the Week top spot by just 25 measly points, or 0.01% – that’s GOTTA hurt) – enjoy strong weeks too.

Heatseekers

Because of the boy Brown’s sales slump – yes, I’m calling it a slump – you have to look towards the teams that didn’t pick The Lost Symbol for this week’s Heatseekers. Morgan Adebayo’s Late Bloomers finally got off the mark thanks to early pre-official release date sales for Jeremy Clarkson’s Driven to Distraction, so he tops the list with an incalculable growth. Lauren Ace’s Lacey Tiger sits second with a 167.5% week-on-week boost, thanks to (yawn) Guinness World Records. Nadine Rocha’s Tut tut tut takes third thanks to (yawn), Guinness World Records. Incidentally, Guinness World Records’ sales increased 141% week-on-week. Oh, that explains it.

Overall Leaderboard

The Bookseller’s not newly-promoted (but deserves one, I’m certain) events guru Sal Greetham’s Sal’s Books tops the leaderboard. She got married recently and is currently in Bali. So I’m sure she couldn’t care less. I feel like removing her from the top of the chart on the grounds that she doesn’t require more happiness. But I won’t.
She swaps places with Serena Alam week-on-week, while Mia Leonard remains locked into second position. Therefollows a bit of a gap to Nichola Cook and her Barney Cooks the Books, but only five of Nichola’s books have entered the playing field that is the great British bookshop. So Sal et al better keep an eye over their shoulders.

And finally, yesterday was “Super Thursday” – a day of big releases for the book trade. You must have seen something on the news or in the paper about it, and if not, well, you need a little bit of current affairs in your life. Get with it. What “Super Thursday” means for The Bookseller Fantasy League is “probably not a great deal” – at first. About 800 hardbacks hit UK bookshops shelves yesterday (Thursday) so I’m confident they’ll all beat each other up in the remaining three days this week, and put in some low sales. But given time, the cream, as they say, always rises to the top. And, for my own sake, I really hope that Terry Pratchett is feeling a little bit dairy.

Under the Spotlight - Phil Stone's Promotion Material

2009-09-25T17:03:00.005+01:00

Current Position: 55th (28,087 points)

Hello,

My name is Philip Stone, The Bookseller's "charts editor" (read: "glorified sales data analyst"). I work incredibly (perhaps too) closely with The Bookseller's "legendary diarist", Horace Bent—in particular on the world renowned, annual The Bookseller/Diagram Prize for Oddest Book Title of the Year award.

He left me a short, sharp message on my answerphone two days ago asking for a favour: "Mr Stone", the message said. "Can you grant me an act of kindness? A guest blog. Reviewing your ten Fantasy League pickings. Just like I did last week. Perhaps you can explain to everyone just why, when you're supposed to be this magazine's friggin' SALES EXPERT, you didn't pick Dan bleedin’ Brown's The Lost bloody Symbol! You FOOL!".

It was a heartfelt request. So here are my Brown-less pickings.

1. Guinness World Records (£3.9m)—It's very, very, very, very, popular. And as Horace correctly points out, it's been getting bigger and bigger every year. So this was an obvious choice, for me, despite the high price.
2. JLS' Our Story So Far (£1.6m)—They're very, very, very, very popular. And the prospect of even just a slim 1% of their ridiculously big fan base buying or getting a copy at Christmas enticed me to choose it.
3. John Grisham's Ford County (£1.1m)—Horace is right in that short-story collections rarely sell as well for an author as their novels. But the Grish is a father's favourite and I'm sure will still be on countless adult male's letters to Santa.
4. Michael Crichton's Pirate Latitudes (£1.1m)—the late Crichton's previous hardback novels could normally be guaranteed to sell at last 40,000 copies or so. But what with his tragic death late last year, I think it has the potential to be his bestselling HB yet.
5. Posy Edwards' The Zac Efron Yearbook (£0.7m)—apparently he's as popular as JLS. So I thought this little number might be on many a crazed fan's wish list.
6. Ben Elton's Meltdown (£0.7m)—It was originally called Uncontrollable, but now it's called Meltdown. It has a good jacket. And he's a funny, popular chap. And his other HBs have sold well enough to enter the bestseller list for a few weeks.
7. Where's Stig? (£0.6m)—Where's Bin Laden?, another spoof Where's Wally? book, has sold incredibly well since publication, and with a new series of "Top Gear" starting soon, and the bookshops' love of a good tillpoint title, I'm certain this will sell well. It's going in at number four in this weekend's Sunday Times bestseller list. So I've got something right!
8. David Goldblatt's The Football Book (£0.1m)—it's big and cheap.
9. Stavros Flatley's How to be (a Little Bit) Greek (£0.1m)—Am hoping, like Where's Stig? it could be the surprise hit of the year.
10. Ringing Church Bells to Ward off Thunderstorms (£0.1m)—From The Guadian's columns of the same name. It's cheap and it's funny. What more does one want at Christmas?

Why I didn't pick Dan Brown's The Lost Symbol
Because I didn't think it would do as well as it has done.

The Bookseller Fantasy League: WEEK FOUR

2009-09-23T12:10:00.007+01:00

Unless one's been living in a cave over the last couple of week's (Osama, I'm looking at you), you'll be aware that a rather "important" new book has hit bookshop shelves recently. No, not a "new" J K Rowling-approved edition of The Bible, in which Harry Potter prematurely ends JC's atonement with a "cross demolishus" spell. And no, not Paul McKenna's latest "self help" tome, You Can Make Me Rich. I'm talking Dan Brown Dan Brown Dan Brown Dan Brown Dan Brown Dan Brown Dan Brown Dan Brown Dan Brown Dan Brown Dan Brown Dan Brown Dan Brown Dan Brown Dan Brown Dan Brown Dan Brown Dan Brown Dan Brown Dan Brown Dan Brown Dan Brown Dan Brown Dan Brown. And by "important", I mean Brown's The Lost Symbol has been "important" to Brown's pocket, as well his UK publishers, Transworld, and any retailer selling it as anything other than a loss-leader (of which there are few).

And so, the forgotten son of the planet's book industry returns. About five years after we thought he would. And, to be honest, the lad done good. The reviews ain't been that bad (even in "The Grauniad "- see DailyMash for a hilarious spoof BTW). And the sales, well, the boy Brown done very good. In the UK and USA alone, it sold 1.75m copies in its first five days (according to sales statistics overlords Nielsen BookScan). Which ain't too shabby.

Of course, what it means for The Bookseller Fantasy League is that the UK's greatest test-phase book-sales-based fantasy game has undergone a bit of a revolution . At just £2.1m (a right steal, I tell three), Dan Brown's The Lost Symbol was an enticing pick — a fact not lost on the 32 of you who now find yourselves in the top half of the table. Well done you lot.

But, of course, one book doesn't make a man (unless you are Harper Lee, in which case one book would have made you a man, were it not for the fact that you are, in fact, a woman). Guinness World Records sold just shy of 700,000 copies last year. And both Jamie Oliver's Jamie's Italy and Peter Kay's first memoir, The Sound of Laughter, both sold more than 850,000 copies each in hardback. So, if you didn't pick Dan Brown's The Lost Symbol, don't give up the game just yet. There's still time, and, heck, we ain't even in October yet.

TEAM OF THE WEEK

Thanks to Danny Boy, pukka Jamie, and some sterling early sales from both William Shawcross' "official" biography of the Queen's mum (Queen Elizabeth: The Queen Mother), and super-seller Maeve Binchy's The Return Journey, The Bookseller's own Events Co-ordinator — yes, we do have events, and very reasonably priced they are too — Sally Greetham's Sal's Books tops this week's Team of the Week charts with an impressive 584,846 sale.

Mia Leonard's Arrested Development takes second position, while The Bookseller's own Graeme Neill takes third. Worryingly, G-man (as he is affectionately known), has the Brownmeister, Guinness World Records AND the Queen Mum book in his line-up, so seems hard to beat at the moment. However, he is a Liverpool fan and passionately (but ridiculously, in my opinion) also picked the over-priced (£0.9m) Fernando Torres memoir, El Niño: My Story. Which, in my opinion, could absolutely tank (especially if he signs for Man City, which seems to be the done thing these days).

HEATSEEKERS

By virtue of the fact that last week, Natalie Hüeske's US-strong Americana scored zip points and this week has scored 550,000 copies solely because of the Boy Brown, she tops the Heatseekers list with an incalculable week-on-week growth. Michaela Perry-Blackwell's Born Loser and Catherine Neilan's When the Cat's Away... take second and third respectively.

OVERALL LEADERBOARD

Yeah, you can click on the pics for a close-up you know!

My word. Serena Alam's Team Serena storms to the top of the overall leaderboard with a stupidly massive 660,000 total-to-date sale. Alarmingly, she's still got four books on her fictional bookshelf yet to come in to play. But her big buys are already out. So there's hope for us all, including me. Mia Leonard and Sally Greetham take second and third overall.

Rock bottom is Morgan Adebayo's Late Bloomers. You can say that again. At the moment, he's the Jemini of the league.

Under the Spotlight - Horace Bent's "Get Bent"

2009-09-20T00:52:00.003+01:00

Current Position: 53rd of 71 (3,836 points)

Well, although it looks like I’m off to a slow start, I’m certain that the real reason I’m currently sitting in a lowly 53rd position overall is because all those above me have gotten off to a quicker one. I know that sounds ridiculously obvious, but only two of my team (James May’s Car Fever and Douglas Coupland’s Generation A) are out in the bookshops, and my four biggest purchases are yet to post any sales.

I somewhat regret picking Coupland, but I’m a fan of his work so it was a decision of the heart, rather than the head. May’s rantings have yet to hit the bestseller lists and sales of the book are already declining. I guess what would give his sales a boost would be a new series of “Top Gear” hitting TV screens. Oh, hang on. What’s that? The fourteenth series of “Top Gear” starts in November? Just in time for Christmas? Sweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeet :)

WHY I PICKED WHAT I PICKED

1. Guinness World Records (£3.9m) – It’s been one of the bestselling books of the year every year since it was first published so this was a lock-in. The even better news is that sales in recent years have been getting bigger and bigger, helped by the fact that the majority of bookshops in the UK sell it at half price. Nice.

2. Dan Brown’s The Lost Symbol (£2.1m) – Although I wasted four hours of my life reading The Da Vinci Code and then, quite bizarrely, paid too much money to see its dire silver-screen adaptation, I never underestimate the stupidity of the British reading public, and am confident everyone from little baby Adam (who can’t read) to grandma Ethel (whose eyesight is so bad she can’t read) will buy a copy “to see what all the fuss is about”. And also, it will no doubt be purchased by many people too thick to think of a proper present to get their long-lost uncle that they haven’t seen for ages because he’s been ostracised from the family following that unfortunate incident with the air rifle and the next-door neighbour’s cat.

3. Terry Pratchett’s The Unseen Academicals (£1.9m) – Pratchett’s adult novels sell like hot cakes but this one concerns a Discworld football team. Now, I imagine the concept of “football” to an atypical (lonely, ugly, geeky) Pratchett fan will strike them with the same rabbit-in-the-headlight confusion/horror/fear as the concepts of “women”, friends” and “social life”. But Pratchett’s had a good, visible year, what with the Alzheimer’s documentaries and what not. So I’m nonetheless expecting big sales from his latest epic.

4. John Grisham’s Ford County (£1.1m) – Pop pop loves a Grisham and his short stories collection will no doubt land in the lap of many fathers come Chrimbo morning. I know I want it. Short-story collections rarely sell as well as full-length novels but if anyone can still sell outside their comfort zone it’s the Grish. His non-fiction The Innocent Man has sold, like, ten squillion copies.

5. James May’s Car Fever (£0.4m) – Written by the other man on BBC’s “Top Gear”. The one that does those toy documentaries. No, not that fat, loud one. The one who sometimes goes travelling with Oz Clarke looking for fine wines and stuff. No, not the small one who had the crash. The one with the floppy hair. No? Oh, forget it. Anyway, a new series of “Top Gear” begins this November, although Clarkson and Hammond have also got books out this Christmas and (no offence), Captain Slow’s previous book sales are, frankly, quite shite. Still, the only way is up, no?

6. Douglas Coupland’s Generation A (£0.2m) – He’s got a cult fan base (I’m one of them). And this is a follow-up to perhaps his most revered novel to date (Generation X). So I expect it’ll sell more than 10,000 by the end of the year. Which ain’t too shabby.

7. The Cricket Year (£0.1m) – And what a year it has been. England won some Ashes.

8. Stavros Flatley’s How to Be (a little bit) Greek (£0.1m) – There’s always one book every Christmas that comes from nowhere and ends up on the bestseller list, and I think this little tillpoint tome from the real winners of "Britain’s Got the X Factor, Get Me Out of Here!" will be 2009’s.

9. The Football Book (£0.1m) – Illustrated publishing experts Dorling Kindersley can always be replied upon for a lovely coffee table book or two. And this one is ideal for the guys. It’s even bound in real football leather/pig skin/whatever it is they use these days.

10. Irène Némirovsky’s The Dogs and the Wolves (£0.1m) – Némirovsky’s Suite Française was a huge hit when rediscovered and first published in English a few years back. She was a novelist that died in Auschwitz, aged 39. At first, it was thought she passed away due to typhus, but it later transpired she suffered the same horrific fate as so many in the gas chambers. The Dogs and the Wolves was the last book published in her lifetime, two years before the Nazis got hold of her. It arrives in an English edition for the first time this year. However, the jacket it shit. And I pray to God that shoppers overlook this fact and buy it anyway.

The Bookseller Fantasy League: WEEK THREE

2009-09-17T11:00:00.009+01:00

Oliver, Dawkins, Patterson, Faulks, Muchamore, Gregory and J.L.S. (like, OMG, J.L.S. from "The X Factor", like, they are, like, soooo totally fit and amazin, innit, and I can certainly see why, at the age of, like, 12, they've decided to release, like, a memoir, like, about how they used to hang around the Whitgift Centre in, like, Croydon, on, like, Friday afternoons, and shit) were the biggest sellers of the week, and the usual suspects within The Bookseller Fantasy League were knocking around the top of the charts.

Serena Alam's Team Serena is WEEK THREE's "Team of the Week", thanks to Jamie Oliver, Sebastian Faulks and some early sales of Margaret Atwood's apocalyptic novel, The Year of the Flood. But Alam continues to sit behind Hehn and Oliphant on the overall leaderboard.

Three employees of the greatest magazine in the world ("The Bookseller", duh), make the "Heatseekers" Top 10, but Dee Smith's Bloody Foreigners takes top spot thanks largely to Judy Parkinson's "Popular Expressions - What They Mean and Where We Got Them"—Spilling the Beans on the Cat's Pyjamas.

Next week, Dan Brown results will be in. God help anyone who didn't pick The Lost Symbol.

The Bookseller Fantasy League: WEEK TWO

2009-09-17T10:27:00.006+01:00

Jamie Oliver's Jamie's America (too many Jamie's in that sentence for my liking but then, he is a vain (***expletives removed*** naughty Horace!) so I'm sure he won't complain) hit the shelves in WEEK TWO, selling an impressive 35,000-plus copies. Waterstone's were practically giving the £26 book away by selling it at an eye-watering £9.99, which is less than Jamie's own Sainsbury's were selling it for. I'd 'ave a word mate, me ol' son. Threaten to defect to Morrisons, or someink, pukka.

Ever since he was name-dropped by Richard and Judy (remember them?) on their Channel Four TV show (remember that?) a couple of Christmases ago, Robert Kilgore (niiiiice) Muchamore has been a firm favourite with young boys across the UK. The eleventh book in his CHERUB teen spy series, Brigands M.C., sold more than 8,000 copies in WEEK TWO, while everyone's favourite atheist (except perhaps the Big Man's), Richard Dawkins' The Greatest Show on Earth and everyone's favourite Ian Fleming, Sebastian Faulks' A Week in December, also enjoyed bestseller success.

Sally Oliphant, last week's chart-topper, enjoyed another storming week thanks to Jamie's America, but Wenning Hehn's In it to Win it takes the "Team of the Week" accolade thanks to both Jamie's America and Brigands M.C. Oliphant continues to top the "Overall Leaderboard" however, with Serena Alam's Team Serena slightly ahead of Julius North's I Hate This Game Anyway in fourth...

The "Heatseekers" list ranks the teams that experienced the strongest sales uplift between WEEK ONE and WEEK TWO and stone me if it ain't Jamie bleedin Oliver behind the reasons why both Celeste Jadin's The New J K Rowlings and Cheryl Grant's Grant Me Won Wish (great name) shot up the charts. But Bob Stone's To Tell the Truth enjoyed a terrific uplift without him. Partly due to the success of machine/man James Patterson's 121st novel of 2009 hitting shelves (Alex Cross' Trial), and partly due to the fact Stone had a miserable WEEK ONE, he tops the Heatseekers list. Well done, Sir...

The Bookseller Fantasy League: WEEK ONE

2009-09-16T16:47:00.023+01:00

Oh gawd.

So Headline go on and pull one of the Christmas big hitters from their schedules—Carol Vorderman's It All Counts. It is/was on the list at a pricey £2.0m. And two of the 71 teams had it on the fictional shelf (that is, that the fantasy bookselling shelf is "fictional", not her memoir). But those two persons have been contacted. And they've re-picked.7

One of them went for Dan Brown's The Lost Symbol at £2.1m. If first-day reports are to be believed then its on course for a 350,000-plus opening week sale. £2.1m sounds like a right bargain to me, I tell thee. I had it in my starting 10 all along. But so did a lot of you.

In fact, 32 of the 71 teams have it on their fictional shelf. The other most-purchased titles are:

Stavros Flatley's How to be (a little bit) Greek (30 picks)
Guinness World Records (25)
William Shawcross' Queen Elizabeth (17)
Jamie Oliver's Jamie's America (15)
Andrew Flintoff's Ashes to Ashes (13)
Delia Smith's Delia's Happy Christmas (12)
Audrey Niffenegger's Her Fearful Symmetry (11)
Posy Edwards' Zac Efron Yearbook (10)
Peter Kay's Saturday Night Peter (9)
Terry Pratchett's The Unseen Academicals (9)
John Grisham's Ford County (9)
Where's Stig? (9)
Stieg Larsson's The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets' Nest (9)

But anyway, on to Week 1 (ending 29th August)...

107 of the 350 (now 349) books posted sales, with the bestsellers being Philippa Gregory's The White Queen; Rick Stein's Far Eastern Odyssey; and Michelle Paver's Ghost Hunter. "Usborne Publicity" had two of those titles on its fictional shelf, and so Sally Oliphant finds herself at the top of the team of the week charts. Mary Edwards' "A Woman Wot Reads", Louise Shawcroft's "Horace Bent's My Real Father" (cripes), and Ellie Levenson's "Viva Livre" all scored more than 10,000 sales in Week 1 also...

The Bookseller Fantasy League — CONFIRMED entries

2009-09-01T09:21:00.020+01:00

Team Name / Manager
History in the Making / Neill Denny (The Bookseller)
Promotion Material / Phil Stone (The Bookseller)
Get Bent / Horace Bent (The Bookseller)
Curt Vonneygoot / Yvonne Stone
A Woman Wot Reads / Mary Edwards
The Bookseller / Stephanie Atha (The Bookseller)
Davies' Dream Team / Hannah Davies (The Bookseller)
The Triumphant Ten / Victoria Gallagher (The Bookseller)
Fliss' Books / Felicity Wood (The Bookseller)
Some Books ARE Just for Christmas / Tom Tivnan (The Bookseller)
To Tell the Truth / Bob Stone
Trust in the Children / Robert John
Christmas Stockings / Marzia Ghiselli (The Bookseller)
Read This and Weep / Nicola Chin (The Bookseller)
@Open_Book / Alistair Spalding
Inglorious Booksellers / Graeme Neill (The Bookseller)
Wolf Books / Ian Dunn
When the Cat's Away… / Catherine Neilan (The Bookseller)
@danm605 / Dan M
Team Serena / Serena Alam
Viva Livre / Ellie Levenson
Sal's Books / Sally Greetham (The Bookseller)
Bottom 1000 Amazon Reviewers / Jared Shurin
Mr Inch's Books / Mr Inch
Gok Wan Arsenal Nil / Barbara Davies
Turner Up the Heat / Maria Turner
Ray Hollinghurst Ate My Hamster / Fan of Ray
Recommends Baytastic / Richard Owen
Celebs Sell (Hopefully) / Erik Nyesund
Food for Thought / Thomas Cake
Fantastic Fiction / David Stevens
Late Bloomers / Morgan Adebayo
Basement Dwellers / Erika Armine
In it to Win it / Wenning Hehn
Middle of the Road / Marcus Santi
Lost in the Hub / Whoopsie Daisy
Annuals are it / Malcolm Riddle
Top Gear / Lisa Rueo
Bloody Foreigners / Dee Smith
I Hate This Game Anyway / Julius North
Reality Welcome / Mark Merryweather
Horace Bent's My Real Father / Louise Shawcroft
The Music of the Primes / Yoshi Bennayashi
Girl Power / Amy Nielsen
Vowel Please, Carol / B Burnell
Born Loser / Michaela Perry-Blackwell
Straight into the Bargain Bin / Nigel Nsenko
Remainders / Paul Adamson
Spent Force / Charlie White
Americana / Natalie Hueske
Door Stoppers / Patterson Fielder
Blake's Progress / Blake Simonnson
Rocha and Roll / Nadine Rocha
Tut tut tut / Nadine Rocha
If you're above me you suck / Len Whiteread
Next Read / Gav
Lacey Tiger / Lauren Ace
Barney Cooks the Books / Nichola Cook
Emdee / Nigel Roby (The Bookseller)
The New J K Rowlings / Celeste Jadin
Born Yesterday / @TheUncle1
The Squirrel of Hope / Andre Breedt
The Argonauts / Jay Omotoso
Grant Me Won Wish / Cheryl Grant
The Flying Moose / Carol Brownlee
Pet (Any Sort) / Reeta Windsor
Usborne Publicity / Sally Oliphant
Double Jamesons / Varchas Doshi
BookScan India / Jeremy Neate
Arrested Development / Mia Leonard
Puffin Hell / Win Phillips

Notes:

The competition is in a test phase only this year so there ain't no prizes for winning. The fun is in the taking part.
It is organised by me (Horace Bent), on behalf of The Bookseller magazine.
Sales stats are provided by Nieslen BookScan but individual book sales will NOT be published here. They are based on hardback, UK-wide single-edition sales. Contact Nielsen on 01483 712 222 for more information on how you can subscribe to book sales statistics on a regular basis. They are lovely chaps (and girls).
Individual team compositions will not be published either as I don't think it right to poke fun at losers who don't know jack about books.
Although the game begins this week, the first two weeks worth of results will not be published until around Thursday 17th September or thereabouts.
Just because you didn't pick Dan Brown's The Lost Symbol doesn't mean you can pick him at a later date. There are NO TRANSFERS in this game. Deal with it. It's not as if a book can get "injured" a lá Michael Owen in the far inferior ol' Fantasy Football games.

The Bookseller Fantasy League

2009-08-28T02:16:00.004+01:00

Although this game will begin during the week ending Saturday 5th September (depending on hangover) the first two weeks of results will not be published until Wednesday/Thursday 16th/17th Septemberish (depending on hangover).