The most notable feature of the top ten this week is its remarkable stability.

The same few titles seem to be rotate around the top slots and have done for the last few weeks. Binchy, O’Connor, Stockett, Picoult are all solid names on the list, so too the seemingly unceasingly popular Larsson.

The arrival in the top ten this week of Amanda Brunker and the return of McCann brings the Irish author contingent to 40% which is no mean feat.

1: The Help, Kathryn Stockett, 1,934
2: Ghost Light, Joseph O’Connor, 1,720
3: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Stieg Larsson, 1,683
4: The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets’ Nest Stieg Larsson, 1,599
5: Picture Perfect, Jodi Picoult, 1,527
6: The Girl Who Played with Fire, Stieg Larsson, 1,421
7: Short Second Life of Bree Tanner: An Eclipse Novella, Meyer, Stephenie, 1,283
8: The Return Journey, Binchy, Maeve, 1,265
9: Champagne Secrets, Amanda Brunker, 1,195
10: Let the Great World Spin, Colum McCann, 1,050

Data Supplied by Nielsen BookScan taken from the Irish Consumer Market week ending 17th July 2010

Joseph O’Connor is still going strong with Ghost Light, I wonder how much longer he can keep that up. Kathryn Stockett’s The Help and Jod Picoult’s Picture Perfect round out the top three. Only one other Irish writer makes the Top Ten, Maeve Binchy.

1: Ghost Light, Joseph O’Connor, 1,977
2: Picture Perfect, Jodi Picoult, 1,788
3: The Help, Kathryn Stockett, 1,690
4: The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets’ Nest, Stieg Larsson, 1,597
5: Short Second Life of Bree Tanner: An Eclipse Novella, Meyer, Stephenie, 1,430
6: The Girl Who Played with Fire, Stieg Larsson, 1,347
7: The Return Journey, Binchy, Maeve, 1,281
8: Play Dead, Harlan Coben, 1,271
9: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Stieg Larsson, 1,781
10: The Twin, Gerbrand Bakker, 1,190

Data Supplied by Nielsen BookScan taken from the Irish Consumer Market week ending 3rd July 2010

Another good week for Joseph O’Connor, Ghost Light seems to be striking a cord with readers. Stephanie Meyer’s success is more muted but still a very credible performance. Most impressive to me is the arrival on the top ten of The Twin, Gebrand Bakkar’s IMPAC winning novel. Perhaps the word of mouth is finally leaking through.

1: Ghost Light, Joseph O’Connor, 2,267
2: The Truth About You, Melissa Hill, 1,992
3: The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner: An Eclipse Novella, Stephenie Meyer, 1,774
4: The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets’ Nest, Stieg Larsson, 1,642
5: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Stieg Larsson, 1,611
6: The Help, Kathryn Stockett, 1,516
7: The Twin, Gerbrand Bakker , 1,479
8: The Girl Who Played with Fire, Stieg Larsson, 1,439
9: The Return Journey, Maeve Binchy , 1,322
10: Picture Perfect, Jodi Picoult, 1,001

Data Supplied by Nielsen BookScan taken from the Irish Consumer Market week ending 26th June 2010

Stephanie Meyer’s sales last week were nicely impressive and were enough to overtake Joseph O’Connor and push him into second place.  A good showing for Irish authors and still that strange chunk of the top ten made up of a certain Swedish author!

1: The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner:An Eclipse Novella, Stephanie Meyer, 5,255
2: Ghost Light, Joseph O’Connor, 2,385
3: The Help, Kathryn Stockett, 1,676
4: The Truth About You, Melissa Hill, 1,668
5: The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets’ Nest, Stieg Larsson, 1,598
6: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Stieg Larsson, 1,529
7: The Girl Who Played with Fire, Stieg Larsson, 1,264
8: The Perfect Man, Sheila O’Flanagan, 1,188
9: Private, James Patterson, 926
10: The Scarpetta Factor, Patricia Cornwell, 914

Data Supplied by Nielsen BookScan taken from the Irish Consumer Market week ending 12th June 2010

Smashing sales by Joseph O’Connor this week, really something you’d expect much closer to the Christmas peak, but then again he has had an incredible profile and the book has had good initial reviews. It helps that the summer reading period is just beginning. It’s doubly impressive to see that he defeated Stephanie Meyer to the top spot (though he sales are not to be sniffed at as they represent only one days sales!

1: Ghost Light, Joseph O’Connor, 3,605
2: The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner: An Eclipse Novella, Stephenie Meyer, 1,864
3: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Stieg Larsson, 1,460
4: The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets’ Nest , Stieg Larsson, 1,456
5: Truth About You,The, Melissa Hill, 1,443
6: Perfect Man, Sheila O’Flanagan, 1,390
7: The Help, Kathryn Stockett, 1,185
8: The Girl Who Played with Fire, Stieg Larsson, 1,145
9: The Scarpetta Factor, Patricia Conrwell, 1,076
10: House Rules, Jodi Picoult, 998

Data Supplied by Nielsen BookScan taken from the Irish Consumer Market week ending 5th June 2010

Eason has opened a new bookstore in the former Hughes & Hughes store on Marine Road, Dun Laoghaire, Co Dublin.

The store opened on Saturday 6th June and has new stock including the new Stephanie Meyer and The Short Second Life Of Bree Tanner.

Hughes & Hughes ceased to trade at the location on Friday 26th February after it went into receivership. It cited high rents as one of the reasons for the move.

Eason already has a branch on Dun Laoghaire’s main shopping street Upper Georges Street. The two-floor store stocks books, stationary, magazines, newspapers and confectionery.

Aside from the Dun Laoghaire branch, Eason has taken over the Dublin airport stores once operated by Hughes and Hughes.

Alice Sebold's, movie driven success continues. It is surely one of those books that nearly EVRYONE has read by now. As 2009 was the year of Stephanie Meyer, 2010 is shaping up to be Stieg Larsson, though it is early days yet and a contender may emerge

1: The Lovely Bones, Alice Sebold
2: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Stieg Larsson
3: The Girl Who Played with Fire, Stieg Larsson
4: The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets’ Nest, Stieg Larsson
5: The Missing, Jane Casey
6: Maths Tables
7: Stolen, Lesley Pearse
8: Invictus: Nelson Mandela and the Game That Made a Nation, John Carlin
9: One Day, David Nicholls
10: The Lovely Bones, Alice Sebold

Source, Nielsen Bookscan ICM Figures

We have the somewhat odd situation at the end of February where Alice Sebold occupies two slots with one book (in different editions), a product of the motion picture hype and the impressive performance of Irish actress Saoirse Ronan. Colum McCann makes a return after a somewhat strange disappearance driven I suspect by poor restocking or perhaps a rushed reprint. Larsson remains strong and two weeks in a row without Meyer. If Meyer’s fading sales are consistent worldwide, Hachette may need to find something soon for 2010 if their figures have any hope of matching the results from 2010.

1: The Lovely Bones, Alice Sebold
2: State Mathematical Tables
3: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Stieg Larsson
4: Living with Evil, Cynthia Owen
5: The Girl Who Played with Fire, Stieg Larsson
6: Let the Great World Spin, Colum McCann
7: The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets’ Nest, Stieg Larsson
8: The Lovely Bones, Alice Sebold
9: Stolen, Lesley Pearse
10: The Lovers, John Connolly

Source: Nielsen Bookscan, ICM

Nielsen released an analysis of the Irish Consumer Market for 2009 today. You can read the press release here on BookTrade.info:

Nielsen BookScan measured a total of €156.5m in value sales with a total of 14.6m units (volume) sold in the Irish Consumer Market down 5.4% in value but up 4.4% in volume year on year. Best selling titles include Sebastian Barry’s The Secret Scripture which, sold 74,233 units pipping Dan Brown’s The Lost Symbol to the post by just over 4,000 copies. Stephenie Meyer’s continued success is reflected in the Irish charts with titles from the Twilight series taking positions 3 and 4 followed by The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, by Stieg Larsson.

Some not too surprising news is that Hachette Group (including Hodder Grp, Headline Grp, Little Brown, Hachette Ireland, Orion and Octopus) is the biggest publisher in Ireland, followed by Random House (including Transworld, Transworld Ireland) and then Penguin (including Penguin Ireland, DK & Rough Guides).

Interestingly, Fiction and Non-Fiction sales were down, though Current Affairs was up a phenomenal 210% (driven according to the release by Fintan O’Toole, Shane Ross and their peers) and Sports did well. As it has for the last number of years, children’s books did well:

Children’s book sales have had a remarkable year due to the buoyant effect of Stephenie Meyer. Value sales have shown an increase of 6.1% on 2008. It looks like J.K. Rowling’s popularity has been replaced by keen interest in anything by Stephenie Meyer.

Mr Darcy, Vampyre

Having published our first children’s book just before Christmas, I had more reason than normal to look closely at what is being promoted for children through bookshops and equally what is best selling. I have to confess as I wandered through the bookshops that I guiltily pondered how easier it might be to get publicity and the attention of older children if our book only contained a vampire.

Now don’t get me wrong our book was based on the wonderful folk tales collected by Douglas Hyde over a hundred years ago and the pure joy I got from those stories was the driving reason we decided to publish. The book was also a storybook and our intention was never to aim for a teenage market but when you see the sales that Stephanie Meyer is driving through the charts and the publicity vampire books generate you think, well, what if? What if one of those original stories had contained a vampire wouldn’t it make a nice addition to your sales pitch.

Again we got great coverage and support for our title, helped by the very well received illustrations that Paul Bolger contributed to the book, but it got me thinking on a larger scale. What if I was trying to make a book appeal to teenagers how easier it would be if the book contained a minimum quota of one vampire. The more I thought about it the more logical it seemed. A classics list recently placed a sticker on its books saying ‘does not contain zombies’ but how effective would a sticker be that said ‘contains a minimum of one vampire.’

Great Expectations by Charles Dickens is surely a struggle for the average teen living on a diet of love lorn teenage vampires. All a clever publisher need do is change Mrs. Havisham into a vampire. She, with curtains always drawn, is a prime candidate. With a little stretch we could have her die with a wooden stake through her heart, hardly acceptable in the original but a very valid end for a vampire. Sacrilege I hear you cry but the change required is so small, would we not be happy with teenagers reading 90% of the original text, to allow us get a sticker on the front saying ‘contains a minimum of one vampire.’

There are no end of books that could benefit from such a sticker, creating countless appeal for teenagers. Instead of shooting a rabid dog Atticus, in To Kill a Mockingbird, could hammer a stake through the heart of a marauding vampire and instead say ‘I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man driving a stake through a marauding vampire’s heart. It’s when you know you’re licked before you begin but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what.’ A whole new generation would open up to that key message, again only the slightest change is required.

Another great benefit would be that key works of literature would find themselves drifting to the front of bookshops. When the inevitable ‘vamp lit’ sections are put into action, beside their forerunner the ‘misery lit’ section, literature will find itself in a key position with their now readily recognisable vampire stickers.

Please feel free to post your suggestions of how to turn a serious work of fiction into a vampire book with only the slightest of change. I will send a free copy of Ancient Folk Tales of Ireland to the most original. The judge’s decision will be final and we accept no responsibility if any publisher is crazy enough to follow any of the suggestions above or any of those posted by you.

Colm Ennis is Publisher at Hawk Hill Publishing Limited and a former head of buying at Hughes & Hughes one of of Ireland’s largest booksellers.