Every year, I find it fascinating to put together all the territories we cover and see which books were popular within each market, which were global hits and finally which sold the most copies overall. With 17 countries in the mix (France, United Kingdom, Italy, Spain, Australia, Brazil, Poland, India, Netherlands, Belgium, Mexico, Switzerland, Portugal, Ireland, South Africa Colombia, and New Zealand), there are plenty of surprises to be found, whether in terms of overlapping bestsellers or unique entries, but for anyone paying attention to book trends in recent years, the number one book of 2024 shouldn’t come as much of a surprise. Based on cumulative sales for all editions and translations, It Ends With Us by Colleen Hoover has emerged as the overall bestseller across all the territories we measure, with follow-up It Starts With Us also making the top five.
The Housemaid by Freida McFadden reached the runner-up spot for the year, with its sequel The Housemaid’s Secret also within the top ten. One more author banked two titles, as both Fourth Wing and Iron Flame by Rebecca Yarros achieved bestseller status. Sticking with the romantasy shelves, A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas ranked ninth for 2024.
For those keeping track, that leaves three spots, and incidentally, they’re the three with the smallest UK footprint. Atomic Habits by James Clear made it to third overall for the year, and first in non-fiction, with The Psychology of Money by Morgan Housel also representing non-fiction at the number ten spot; both titles saw just 13% of their sales come from the UK, with Spain seeing the highest sales for the former and India for the latter. That wasn’t the lowest UK share, however, as Joel Dicker’s latest novel Un Animal Sauvage has yet to be released in English, but strong sales led by France, Italy and Spain earned it the number six spot (with just 1% of sales coming from outside Europe, thanks to Brazil, Mexico and Colombia).
France and the UK are the two largest markets that we measure, so both can have a significant influence on the overall bestsellers, but as we’ve already seen, those two aren’t always the top markets. Below you can see how sales broadly break down for the top ten of 2024, compared to the total market split at the top. The European countries we track made up around 80% of the total for the year, and the books that go beyond that are The Housemaid, Un Animal Sauvage and The Housemaid’s Secret, with France contributing the highest sales for all three. The UK had the highest sales for both Colleen Hoover titles as well as Fourth Wing and A Court of Thorns and Roses, while Spain was ahead for Iron Flame, but the cumulative Europe share for those five comes to less than the 80% market stat, showing their wider global success..
That wider picture goes even further with the non-fiction bestsellers. Even as Spain was the top country for Atomic Habits, the next two in the list are India and Mexico, leading the 50% of sales made outside Europe. The Psychology of Money is almost the mirror opposite of the total market, with 70% of sales coming from non-European markets, particularly India and Brazil accounting for more than half of the overall purchases.
But how did these books perform within the context of each individual market? I won’t go through every chart here, but Atomic Habits ranked within the most top tens for the year, at nine, followed by six appearances for The Housemaid. Both titles managed to nab the number one spot twice, with Atomic Habits leading in Mexico and South Africa and The Housemaid in France and Portugal. The power of books, connecting readers near and far!
The global bestsellers and international market performance will be featured in the UK Book Market in Review 2024, available soon. For more information on that report or any of these markets, please contact infobookresearch@nielseniq.com.
