TV Series Book Sales - Updated

The 9 December edition of the Bookseller focuses on Science Fiction and Fantasy books and includes a chart of the Top 20 SF Hardback Titles in the 26 weeks to 19 November, a period which neatly encompasses the whole sales period for the first three BBC Books Ninth Doctor novels. With combined sales of over 80,000 units, the initial Doctor Who range has been outsold only by Harry Potter and Terry Pratchett, and the trade magazine comments that "one of the stories of the year has been the revival of 'Doctor Who'. The six novels based on the regenerated BBC series all feature on the hardback chart, with combined sales through BookScan's Total Consumer Market of well over 100,000. A Christmas Day special will introduce the new Doctor, David Tennant, while three new novels by Stephen Cole, Justin Richards and Jacqueline Rayner will accompany the start of the next series at Easter 2006." The second batch of three novels also features in the chart although, with a sales period of only 38% of that for the first wave and with no series on television, this set has done well to sell 37% of the first-batch sales (30,673 in 11 weeks, to 81,942 in 26 weeks). The Bookseller's chart of the Top 20 Children's Books also continues to show great success for Panini's Doctor Who Annual 2006, which has continued to perform strongly over the last month and managing to break into the Top 10 for a while with steadily building sales.

Also, on the subject of TV series tie-in books, one of the books in the Doctor Who Files series from BBC Children's Books next spring has, according to Amazon, changed its title, from 'New Earth' to The Sycorax.