Fiction Is HOT This Holiday Season

BookNet Canada Data Shows Fiction Accounts for Nearly 50% of All Book Sales
Giller Winner Bloodletting and Miraculous Cures Remains the #1 Bestseller

TORONTO – December 14, 2006 – Canadians love a good story.

In a holiday sales report released to the publishing industry this week, BookNet Canada data shows fiction sales are outstripping all other categories by a wide margin, accounting for about 46% of all book sales (combining juvenile and adult fiction), followed by cooking, which represents 6.45% of sales, based on the three weeks ending December 3. BookNet will issue an industry report on the bestselling books and categories of 2006 overall at month end.

In the all-important holiday buying rush, BookNet Canada sales data shows Giller winner Vincent Lam’s Bloodletting and Miraculous Cures topping sales across the country across all categories and formats, with Mitch Albom’s For One More Day, a tale of one man’s second chance to set his life right, as the bestselling hardcover fiction title.

“This is an exceptional holiday season for fiction,” said BookNet CEO Michael Tamblyn. “New authors like Vincent Lam and Kiran Desai, literary luminaries like Atwood and Munro, the mass market trinity of Ludlum, King and Crichton – it’s a bonanza for fiction-lovers this year.”

In an interesting twist in non-fiction, You: On a Diet and Joy of Cooking, a 75th anniversary edition, are neck-and-neck in terms of sales. Perennial favourite Guinness World Records is the number two bestseller overall across all categories.

Sales also indicate that, true to form, Canadians love hockey and, by association, hockey books. Collins Gem Hockey Facts & Stats and Searching for Bobby Orr, a biography of the hockey legend by Stephen Brunt, are in the top five of their categories.

So far this holiday season, for the three weeks ending December 3rd, Canada’s bestselling books are as follows:

Top 5 Overall, All Categories

1. Bloodletting and Miraculous Cures, Vincent Lam (Doubleday Canada, trade paperback) $17.95
2. Guinness World Records 2007 (Guinness World Records Ltd., hardcover) $35.95
3. The Ambler Warning, Robert Ludlum (St. Martin’s Press, mass market) $12.99
4. Uncle John’s Curiously Compelling Bathroom Reader (Advantage Publishers Group, trade paperback) $22.95
5. Cell, Stephen King (Simon & Schuster, mass market) $11.99

Top 5 Trade Paperback Fiction

1. Bloodletting and Miraculous Cures, Vincent Lam (Doubleday Canada) $17.95
2. Whitethorn Woods, Maeve Binchy (McArthur & Company) $24.95
3. The Memory Keeper’s Daughter, Kim Edwards (Penguin Group USA) $18.50
4. The Naming of the Dead, Ian Rankin (Orion Books) $24.95
5. Break No Bones, Kathy Reichs (Simon & Schuster) $19.95

Top 5 Hardcover Fiction

1. For One More Day, Mitch Albom (Hyperion Press) $28.95
2. Secrets From the Vinyl Café, Stuart McLean (Penguin Group Canada) $34.00
3. Lisey’s Story, Stephen King (Simon & Schuster) $34.00
4. Cross, James Patterson (Little Brown & Company) $36.99
5. The Christmas Shoes, Donna VanLiere (St. Martin’s Press) $21.95

Top 5 Hardcover Non-Fiction

1. Guinness World Records 2007 (Guinness World Records Ltd.) $35.95
2. You: On a Diet, Michael F. Roizen (Simon & Schuster) $32.00
3. Joy of Cooking, Irma S. Rombauer et. al. (Simon & Schuster) $32.00
4. The Innocent Man, John Grisham (Doubleday Publishing) $35.95
5. Make It Right, Mike Holmes (HarperCollins Canada) $35.95

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About BookNet Canada
Created and supported by the Canadian book industry, BookNet Canada is the not-for-profit agency dedicated to technology innovation in the Canadian book industry. It is responsible for tracking national book sales, managing industry-wide business-to-business electronic commerce, bibliographic data, and other critical components of technology infrastructure.