Indie Bookshop Chart: Fiction Dominates, New Releases Struggle

Fiction’s Reign in Indie Charts

This week’s Indie chart has experienced a little bit of a Fiction book takeover with only 3 slots being offered to Non-Fiction titles: Chloe Dalton’s Raising Hare (Canongate) sticking in fourth location; The Salt Path by Raynor Winn (Penguin) slipping one location to 5th; and the V&A Posting exhibit friend Cartier, which climbs up 2 spots to 11th.

The Safekeep’s Top Position

The Safekeep by Yael van der Wouden (Penguin) has remained at the top of the Indie Bookshop Top 20 momentarily consecutive leading, keeping 5 places in advance of its Overall Customer Market (TCM) placement, according to the current information from NielsenIQ BookScan.

The top five titles which appear in the Indie Bookshop Top 20 are somewhat in line with the full TCM with all of them appearing in the TCM Top 20 as well; although especially the first three titles in the UK-wide Leading 50– The New Neighbours by Claire Douglas (Penguin), We Solve Murders by Richard Osman (Penguin) and The Twelve O’clock At Night Banquet by Lucy Foley (HarperCollins)– fail to make a mark with the indies today.

New Launches’ Limited Impact

Just like the broader TCM charts, brand-new launches have had little impact with the indies this week. Two May-released British Collection Publishing timeless titles struck the checklist of most popular in independent bookshops: Return of the Ancients, the Katy Soar-edited collection of mythical tales and the 61st in BLP’s Stories of the Unusual series in eighth place; and 10th-ranked Cat and Computer mouse, the very first of Christianna Brand name’s Wales-set Examiner Chucky titles, initially released in 1950.

NielsenIQ does not disclose sales numbers for the Indie sector, however with van der Wouden’s Women’s Reward for Fiction-winning unique going down 4.3% in the TCM, it is likely that there was some erosion with the Indies too today. At any rate, in the 3 weeks because the mass market paperback release– cannily timed to accompany the Women’s Reward event– van der Wouden’s debut novel has sold 21,855 units (compared versus the hardback’s 29,228 duplicates because its magazine in Might 2024), no question a significant percentage of which has actually come via indies.