Wednesday, February 13, 2008


Rowling tops revenue list

Philip Stone writing in The Bookseller.

J K Rowling was the most successful author in terms of till receipts in 2007, according to analysis of Nielsen BookScan data. But despite being no longer with us for nearly 40 years, Enid Blyton earned more last year than the much-hyped Katie Price.

Blyton's tales of derring-do and adventurous school days kept her comfortably within the Top 50 authors of 2007 with £3.8m spent on her books—more than Richard Dawkins (£3.7m), Price (£3.6m) and Michael Palin (£3.3m). She edged out Mister Men creator Roger Hargreaves, himself dead for 20 years, who took £3.3m in 2007, while the long-expired Jane Austen and Charles Dickens, thanks to reading lists and film/TV adaptations, were still worth £1.2m and £1m to the market respectively.

Up at the business end of the charts, conspiracy king Dan Brown, the UK's highest earning author in 2006, plummeted to 111th place in 2007. Brown took just £1.3m through Nielsen BookScan's Total Consumer Market last year, down from £11.5m the previous year after his long-awaited The Solomon Key failed to materialise, and there was no new film.
But the "Brown gap" left at Random House was more than filled by a resurgent Nigella Lawson, who enjoyed an outstanding 2007 in revenue terms. Nigella Express (Chatto) was second only to Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows in 2007's rank of title revenue, and Lawson's titles took £10m through the TCM last year, up 521.1% on 2006.

With the final book in the Harry Potter heptalogy released last year, it comes as no surprise to find Rowling sitting atop the chart of 2007's revenue leaders. She took £43.5m in 2007, up 1,078% on her 2006 £3.7m figure when no new title was published.
Despite the strong year from Lawson, it was one of the biggest brands contemporary fiction has ever seen that was runner-up to Rowling in 2007. James Patterson—and a handful of writing partners—took £10.3m through the trade last year. Patterson is certainly consistent, up 0.4% on 2006, and he remains one of the most bankable authors around—a strong factor behind Random House's multi-million pound poach from Headline in the summer.

"Richard & Judy" worked their magic for writers over 2007, with Jed Rubenfeld, Kate Morton and Kim Edwards all enjoying revenue through the TCM in 2007 of at least £3m, from just a single paperback title each. But the worth of hardbacks to the market means an author such as Richard Hammond accrued a 2007 TCM revenue of £5.8m—93.1% of which came from On the Edge (W&N) alone.

Francesca Simon's Horrid Henry and the Abominable Snowman and first ever Horrid Henry Annual were the only two of Simon's titles to sell more than £500,000--worth of copies through the TCM last year, but with more than 150 different ISBNs sold through the TCM in 2007, Simon enjoyed annual revenue of £6.2m. Jacqueline Wilson, meanwhile, contributed £7m.
Jamie Oliver may have been edged into fourth place from third overall, but his takings through the TCM were up in 2007 by 2.5% to £9.5m, despite 2006's Cook with Jamie outselling this year's Jamie at Home come the year's end by 487,182 to 456,954. In literary fiction, Ian Mc­Ewan made £5.8m through the market in 2007, helped by a Booker nomination and the film adaptation of Atonement.

Author Top 50 2007/2006
1 Rowling, J K £43.5m £3.7m
2 Patterson, James £10.3m £10.3m
3 Lawson, Nigella £10m £1.6m
4 Oliver, Jamie £9.5m £9.2m
5 Clarkson, Jeremy £9.5m £9m
6 Ramsay, Gordon £7.4m £7.5m
7 Pratchett, Terry £7.2m £6.9m
8 Wilson, Jacqueline £7m £7.5m
9 Simon, Francesca £6.2m £4.9m
10 McEwan, Ian £5.8m £2.7m
11 Hammond, Richard £5.8m £0.6m
12 Bryson, Bill £5.6m £4.9m
13 Pullman, Philip £5.3m £1.5m
14 Hosseini, Khaled £5.3m £1.5m
15 Rankin, Ian £5.2m £3.7m
16 Iggulden, Conn £5.2m £7.6m
17 Picoult, Jodi £5.1m £5.3m
18 Cole, Martina £4.8m £5.5m
19 Steel, Danielle £4.7m £4.4m
20 Donaldson, Julia £4.7m £4.7m
21 Rubenfeld, Jed £4.7m £0
22 Binchy, Maeve £4.6m £2.7m
23 Brand, Russell £4.6m £0
24 Meadows, Daisy £4.6m £6.5m
25 McCall Smith, A £4.4m £3.9m
26 Horowitz, Anthony £4.3m £4.5m
27 Keyes, Marian £4.2m £3.2m
28 Cornwell, Bernard £4.1m £4.4m
29 Cornwell, Patricia £4.1m £3.9m
30 Kinsella, Sophie £4m £3.3m
31 Grisham, John £3.9m £4.4m
32 Smith, Wilbur £3.9m £1.6m
33 Blyton, Enid £3.8m £3.7m
34 Edwards, Kim £3.8m £0
35 Dawkins, Richard £3.7m £2.8m
36 McGregor/Boorman £3.7m £0.3m
37 Child, Lee £3.7m £2.9m
38 Price, Katie £3.6m £4.7m
39 Gerritsen, Tess £3.5m £2.8m
40 Child, Lauren £3.5m £3.3m
41 McKenna, Paul £3.5m £3.6m
42 Haddon, Mark £3.5m £1.3m
43 Cussler, Clive £3.5m £3.1m
44 McNab, Andy £3.3m £4m
45 Hargreaves, Roger £3.3m £3m
46 Palin, Michael £3.3m £2m
47 Morton, Kate £3m £0
48 Osbourne, Sharon £2.9m £1.7m
49 King, Stephen £2.9m £4.3m
50 Sansom, C J £2.8m £1.3m

1 comment:

Unknown said...

I think it's fab that there are 10 children's writers in there - including Enid Blyton - no matter what the 'experts' said about her books kids have always loved them.