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Features |
 
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by
Clem Jackson |
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Making the case for change
This month sees a departure for the Christian
Marketplace bestseller listings as we include
for the first time a chart from an on-line only
retailer, Eden.co.uk. This change has been
brought about for two reasons; firstly, the break up
of Wesley Owen means only have one bookshop
chain of any significant size (CLC, whose chart we
publish); secondly, because internet sales continue
to increase as more and more of the Christian public
develop on-line shopping habits. The internet is
here to stay, people are increasingly using it, as
Christmas sales figures showed, and we cannot
ignore it. I hope that by publishing the Eden chart it
will at least give some insight into the sort of books
on-line purchasers are buying.
See charts here
The Shack remains the number one seller, both in
our leading high street and on-line stores. But the CLC
chart has eight different publishers represented (yes
I know Zondervan is part of HarperCollins but we’ll
ignore that) and there are ten different authors. Lee
Strobel leaps in at No 2 with the only purely Christmas
book in the listing alongside two other new entries.
Eden also have seven different publishers represented
but Hodder & Stoughton once again have the most
entries, with 30% of the total. Mind you we have yet to
see a leading politician appearing in our chart, unlike
the USA, where Sarah Palin makes an entrance into
the ECPA chart alongside such big names as Max
Lucado and Karen Kingsbury. I can’t imagine Tony
Blair or the like making into our charts – can you?
The Eden chart is also interesting for the number
of ‘backlist’ titles in the top ten, eg. 90 Minutes in
Heaven, Faith Like Potatoes and The Bloke’s Bible to
name three. There are also more fiction titles that we
normally see in high-street charts. In addition to The
Shack there is The Centurion’s Wife, Any Minute and
The Noticer. So does this mean that internet buyers
are more interested in fiction and backlist than high
street purchasers? Perhaps it’s a factor of ‘googling’ or
similar. It might even be a factor of linking. Like Amazon,
Eden make recommendations such as ‘people who
bought this also bought ….’. Maybe that’s an idea we
ought to see more of in our bricks and mortar stores.
If you’d like to see other charts features in this
section, for instance your own, then please email
them to clem.jackson@premier.org.uk.
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