Eoin Purcell

UPDATE: ANOTHER 5,198 COPIES IN THE WEEK TO 27th OCTOBER!!!

Well Done Anne
Here is an interesting one. Despite the negative vibes that have been put out about the Booker not driving sales and how the Booker chooses bad books, Anne Enright sold 5,481 copies in Ireland in the week to October 20th according to Bookscan* (including 4 days after she won the prize!).

You can see from the figures below two very interesting things. Firstly the bounce was huge (744% or thereabouts if my maths work out) but also, even before she won the prize, her numbers were very good. In fact she sold some 7,000 copies in the weeks to October 13th. Even if she sells not a single book more, she will be one of Ireland’s top selling authors.

Oh there is a kick off into really good territory around about the time of the Long List announcement, but even by then she had cleared the bones of 2000, a not inconsiderable feat.

So not only is The Booker good for sales in Ireland (driving them from 2000-12000 is impressive) but the notion that the book itself was obscure and unknown is a little forced I think!

Isn’t that interesting?
Eoin

* There are some bigger numbers thrown about in the Irish Independent this week too that are worth looking at, especially this line which makes me smile:

The book is certain to top bestseller lists this week as Eason’s reported sales of 12,000 copies from its store, with the vast majority sold since the prize was announced.

This is in contrast to sales of just 7,340 copies here [my emphasis, how little does this journalist know about Irish book sales if he can write that line] before the Irish author’s win.