Bertie no longer flavour of the month and is trumped by Mr Tayto

Public prefer cheese & onion crisps story to cheesy politicians’ saga

Arguably, not that long ago, he was the most popular person in the country, but Bertie Ahern’s cache has plummeted if this year’s best sellers list is anything to go by. Always a good barometer of public opinion the top sellers in the run up to Christmas show the public have little appetite for Bertie or bankers.

Forging ahead in the sales figures in book shops around the country this week is Senator Shane Ross’ The Bankers: How the Banks Brought Ireland to Its Knees, in sixth place overall on the bestsellers list retailing 2,009 copies. Reflecting the angry mood abroad the week of a brutal budget, sales are also flying it for Fintan O’ Toole’s, Ship of Fools, 1,286. Bertie trails them both with sales of 1,167. Showing steady numbers too are Matt Cooper’s, Who Really Runs the Country, 981 and David McWilliam’s, Follow the Money, 930.

This pattern is consistent throughout a year which has been marked by an obsession with the economy and the banking crisis. Countrywide data from Nielsen’s BookScan for the year to date up until Thursday last showed that Shane Ross’ book, The Bankers has already moved into 12^th place overall in the non-fiction category for 2009 with sales of 10,312. This is not to be mistaken with the title, The Banksters, where David Murphy and Martina Devlin’s book published last May similarly covers our new found fascination with financiers with total sales of 9,895. Bertie Ahern’s Autobiography, which despite appeals from the Tanaiste, Mary Coughlan to cross border shoppers not to be supporting “her majesty’s government”, was nonetheless “printed in Great Britain.”  Bertie’s book hangs precariously inside the top twenty non-fiction list at number 19 with total sales of a modest 9,351.

But fairing even far  worse than Bertie Ahern is the current Taoiseach. Brian Cowen: In His Own Words, has proved a real stinker altogether. Written by Johnny Fallon and published in May it has sold a grand total of a paltry 141 copies. Not doing much better is Jason O’ Toole’s, Brian Cowen: The Path to Power which has only sold a total of 331 copies since published in October 2008. The latest statistics also show that former Taoiseach, Albert Reynolds is not in much demand and his autobiography is languishing in 465th place in Nielsen’s top 1,000 chart with sluggish sales of only 106 books this week, bringing his total to a fairly miserable 2,806.

It’s not that the book buying public have gone off all politicians as topping the non-fiction list for this year by a country mile is Barack Obama’s, Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance with sales of 27,135. You would never have guessed that in second place is Mathematical Tables: For the use in State Examinations, 18,699; The Secret is still selling well at 17,048; The Official Driver Theory Test is at number four (16,900) and the Guinness World Records is in fifth place in the non-fiction category, 15,873.

“Bertie’s book is certainly taking a bath despite heavy discounting and is proving a big disappointment,” according to John McNamee of Eason’s Portlaoise and President of the European Booksellers Federation. “Celebrity publishing like everything else will have its lifespan and is probably coming to an end of the cycle. Rumour in the industry is that Bertie got a significant advance and the publishers Random House will struggle to get their money back on this one. The days of paying out big dosh up front for this kind of book are over as there’s no sustainability in that kind of publishing. In these tough times publishers are no longer going to pay out advances before a book is published or even written.” In some instances Bertie Ahern’s Autobiography which has a reputed print run of a whacking 50,000, is being discounted down from €26.30 by up to 50%.

Mr. Tayto

But it’s far from doom and gloom for all publishers and book shops. Amid the recession the Irish public have retained their voracious appetite for reading. The surprise package of the year, well it’s The Man Inside the Jacket, Mr Tayto. The story of how the humble cheese and onion crisp was pioneered by a real Dub hero Joe ‘Spud’ Murphy from Dawson Street to Coolock before moving on to worldwide domination really is flavour of the month. The dinky little hardback is a snip at €5.99, a masterpiece in guerrilla marketing and tops this week’s all titles best seller list with sales of 3,199. Mr Tayto’s Forest Gump style story not only leaves Bertie Ahern in his wake but also trumps Marian Keyes, Stephanie Meyer, Stieg Larsson, Dan Brown, Rachel Allen and even Shane Ross. Mr Tayto is in tenth place overall for non-fiction this year with a total of 10,793 sales.

Cook books remain as popular as ever as among the other big sellers in non-fiction this year are Rachel Allen who has two books in the top 20, Home Cooking (15,514) and Bake (10,182). The best selling sports book so far this year is Cody: The Autobiography with total sales of 9,537 (854 this week). Grand Slam by Alan English is also going well with sales this week of 1,123; Donal Og Cusack’s, Come What May sold 1,001 and Michael O’ Muircheartaigh’s GAA Odyssey moved 668 units.

In fiction this year Sebastian Barry is way out in front for Faber and Faber with The Secret Scripture selling 71,487 copies, well ahead of Dan Brown’s, The Lost Symbol for Bantom Press in second place on 58,829. Stieg Larsson’s, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is ranked third with 40,294, only ahead of Colm Toibin’s award winning Brooklyn, with sales of 35,665 and in fifth place Patricia Scanlon’s Happy Ever After, which has sold 29,260. This Charming Man by Marian Keyes sold well again this year with 26,003, after she topped the best sellers list last year with the same title with 49,295 copies for Penguin. Her latest title, The Brightest Star in the Sky has sold 20,901 so far this year. But not such a good year for Cecelia Ahern either. She had three books in the best sellers list in 2008 - Thanks for the Memories, The Gift, and PS, I Love You - with total sales of 86,097, in stark contrast with one entry at number 20 this year for The Book of Tomorrow with disappointing sales of 13,330. The Ross O’ Carroll-Kelly brand remains strong with two titles in this year’s top twenty - We Need to Talk About Ross and Rhino, What You Did Last Summer - totalling sales of 39,465.

Overall, however the Irish retail book sector remains remarkably resilient despite the recession with the latest Nielsen data valuing the fiction market here at just over €37 million for 2009 with sales of 3,882,427 to date for 46,929 titles. The non-fiction figures are running at 4,630,297 book sales worth just €65 million for a staggering 199,377 titles. This compares with the 2008 total market value of €111.3 million.