The top selling book of 2023 in the UK was the autobiography of Prince Harry, Spare, as measured by the BookScan UK Total Consumer Market. Its release was a seismic publishing event last January, and it has seen steady sales the entire year in both the UK and around the world.
Meanwhile, the top selling title for Ireland in 2023 was Crime novel, Strange Sally Diamond, by Liz Nugent. This title was more of a slow burner, but by December it had proved its wide appeal by clocking up sales of over 42k, beating Booker Prize winner Prophet Song.
Nielsen Bookdata research also found that whilst print book markets in both regions increased marginally in value sales over the past year, fewer books were bought overall in both countries compared to 2022 (-5% UK and -2% Ireland). In both countries Adult Fiction has remained the strongest performing sector. The Nielsen Bookdata blog gives a summary of the consumer markets of UK and Ireland 2023.
Source: Nielsen Bookdata latest newsletter 7/2/24