It may be a trifle unfair to say that someone who recorded £6.2m in sales had a bad 2013, but this is Jamie Oliver’s worst output through BookScan since his breakout in 2000—barring the hardback-less 2003 (£2.8m).
With hindsight it seems that a recession-themed cookery title was a couple of years too late; Save with Jamie (Michael Joseph) did not have the resonance of a usual Oliver, selling 297,000 copies for £3.2m, his lowest-selling autumn hardback since Jamie’s America (239,623 units for £2.9m in 2009). As the second-bestselling author since records began, Oliver is measured by a different yardstick so this is relative; Save with Jamie was, by some £800,000, the bestselling cookery title by value in 2013.Oliver should steel himself for a flood of “is Jamie over?” articles. But he has a habit of bouncing back: the follow-up to Jamie’s America was Jamie’s 30-Minute Meals, which at £24.5m has sold twice as much (by value) as any other non-fiction title since records began.
The Naked Chef still led the cookery/diet pack, a group that is becoming increasingly crowded at the top. Nine chefs and one diet guru (Spencer) are in the chart—the previous high was five chefs in 2008—including Top 50 débutants Paul Hollywood and Tom Kerridge. An additional four cookery/diet authors shifted over £1m through the TCM in 2013: Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, Gordon Ramsay, Delia Smith and The 2-Day Diet author Dr Michelle Harvie.
No comments:
Post a Comment