The rule holds true: Kiwis will hand over hard cash for a memoir they really want to read. Jacinda Ardern’s A Different Kind of Power has sold the most copies of any New Zealand-published book so far this year, despite being released only on June 3. At least 10,000 copies have sold in New Zealand in just three weeks – impressive for a $60 hardback, a form in which local biographies are rarely sold these days.
According to NielsenIQ BookScan NZ (which doesn’t cover all booksellers ‒ Whitcoulls and Unity Books are among exceptions), that’s three times as many copies as The Book of Guilt, Catherine Chidgey’s dystopian novel published in May, and nearly three times that of the next nonfiction title, Everyday Comfort Food.
In its first week, Ardern’s book also made the top five on Amazon and Audible, and arrived on bestseller lists in the UK and Australia. It hit No 3 on The New York Times’ hardback nonfiction list.
One estimate suggested Ardern’s memoir needed to sell at least 140,000 copies to make its alleged $1.5m advance back, but if sales hold up, it’s well on its way to doing that.
Biographies take up four slots in the top-10 New Zealand non-fiction list for the first six months of the year, the others being Alison Mau’s No Words For This, Pippa Latour and Jude Dobson’s The Last Secret Agent and the second part of Ruth Shaw’s autobiography, Three Wee Bookshops at the End of the World.
There are three cookbooks, all from seasoned authors, and three books devoted to Māori wisdom and thinking, including Hinemoa Elder’s Aroha, that’s been out for nearly five years. Sales for all apart from A Different Kind of Power were in the 1200-3500 range, according to Nielsen.
The bestselling NZ fiction books so far are led by Chidgey’s The Book of Guilt, set in an alternative Britain of 1979, which has sold more than 3300 copies in a couple of months. Thrillers and cosy crime feature, namely Gareth and Louise Ward’s two Bookshop Detectives titles and Rachel Paris’s Sydney-set See How They Fall, alongside historical fiction in Deborah Challinor’s Black Silk and Buried Secrets, Olivia Spooner’s The Songbirds of Florence and, set a century earlier, Kāwai: Tree of Nourishment, Monty Soutar’s sequel to Kāwai: For Such a Time As This. Damien Wilkins’ Delirious, at No 4, has proved a pleaser of both book buyers and judges, selling well since its release last October and taking out this year’s Jann Medlicott Acorn Prize.
NZ-published fiction for adults continues to zoom along, up 38% year-on-year in volume so far. Nonfiction is up 5%. However, locally written books for children and young adults continue to lag, down 8% in volume. Though overall sales are still worth double that of local adult fiction.
The books market overall is so far healthier than in previous years, with growth in the main categories – the top three by sales volume being personal development, biography and food and drink.
TOP 10 NZ FICTION
1. The Book of Guilt by Catherine Chidgey
2. The Bookshop Detectives 2: Tea and Cake and Death by Gareth Ward & Louise Ward
3. See How They Fall by Rachel Paris
4. Delirious by Damien Wilkins
5. Black Silk and Buried Secrets by Deborah Challinor
6. Kāwai: Tree of Nourishment by Monty Soutar
7. The Bookshop Detectives 1: Dead Girl Gone by Gareth Ward & Louise Ward
8. Kataraina by Becky Manawatu
9. The Songbirds Of Florence by Olivia Spooner
10. The Bookshop Detectives 1: Dead Girl Gone (B format) by Gareth Ward & Louise Ward
TOP 10 NZ NONFICTION
1. A Different Kind of Power: A Memoir by Jacinda Ardern
2. Everyday Comfort Food by Vanya Insull
3. No Words for This by Ali Mau
4. The Last Secret Agent by Pippa Latour and Jude Dobson
5. Three Wee Bookshops at the End of the World by Ruth Shaw
6. Tasty by Chelsea Winter
7. More Salad: Two Raw Sisters by Margo Flanagan and Rosa Power
8. Aroha by Dr Hinemoa Elder
9. Atua Wāhine by Hana Tapiata
10. Understanding Te Tiriti by Roimata Smail
