Bestsellers

Just checking up on what’s hot and moving in our bookstore’s various fantastic fiction sections and found that one of our runaway successes was the graphic novel collection of Neil Gaiman’s first ever outing for Marvel, 1602. Not only have we sold an absolute ton of them in only a few weeks, when I checked sales figures for the company I found our wee branch accounted for damned nearly a quarter of the sales for the entire UK for Waterstone’s. That’s a nice, healthy extra bit of sales for our branch for little effort – it’s not a title being discounted, stuck in a 3 for 2 or promoted at the front of store, the extra sales all come from having folk who know the section and how to run it (and the corresponding fact that we have by dint of this knowing how to run it attracted a good reputation as one of the places in Edinburgh to go for this sort of thing, which is better than any number of 3 for 2 promotions in my book). Anyway, since I was having a quick check on top movers I thought I’d post them all up:

Graphic Novels

1) 1602, Neil Gaiman (well, d’uh! Didn’t you read the above?!)

2) Superman: Red Son, Mark Millar

3) The Sandman: Endless Nights, Neil Gaiman

4) The Sandman: the Doll’s House, Neil Gaiman (September’s Book Club choice)

5) Blankets, Craig Thompson (one of Alex’s Staff Recommends)

6) The Hedge Knight, George R R Martin (thanks, Vegar!)

7) McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern, Chris Ware (one of my Recommends)

8) Battle Royal Vol. 3, Koushun Takami

8) = Classic Dan Dare: Mission to Venus Vol. 2, Frank Hampson

9) 30 Days of Night, Steve Niles (another of my Recommends)

10) Hellboy: Seed of Destruction, Mike Mignola (been Recommended for ages!)

Bubbling under: Grant Morrison’s The Filth, J M Strackzynski’s Spider-Man: Coming Home, Jill Thompson’s Death

Science Fiction

1) Going Postal, Terry Pratchett (what a surprise)

2) Monstrous Regiment, Terry Pratchett (even less of surprise)

3) The Algebraist, Iain M Banks

4) Dune: Battle of Corrin, Brian Herbert & Kevin J Anderson

5) Fool’s Fate, Robin Hobb

6) The Northern Lights, Philip Pullman

7) The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (omnibus), Douglas Adams

8) The Novice, Trudi Canavan

9) The Magician’s Guild, Trudi Canavan

10) The Snow, Robert Adams

Bubbling under: The Confusion, Neal Stephenson, White Wolf, David Gemmell.

The Horror section is, unremarkably, dominated by Stephen King (whose remaindered novels are so thick they are being used to deflect RPGs from British tanks in Iraq). However, it’s nice to see that Charlaine Harris’s Stookie Stackhouse Vampire Mysteries are all in the top ten as well (yes more I’ve had in Recommends). It's also scary how many titles (especially the GNs) that I've read and reviewed - they mount up pretty quickly, don't they?