A record 800 titles hit stores Oct. 1
For years British publishers have tended to release their fond hopes for a Christmas-based profit on the same days as their competitors do. This year, with Dan Brown’s massive bestseller taking up all the September oxygen, three times as many titles as normal will be published on Oct. 1. “It’s not a formally organized thing, and there’s no suggestion that publishers are working together to make it happen,” says Benedicte Page, associate editor of Bookseller magazine. “But in the run-up to Christmas, now is the time when they need to get their big titles on to the market, get word out about them, get some momentum going. There is a lot riding on securing one of the huge slots that will sell a lot this Christmas, and for the bookselling market, certain dates are particularly propitious.” In what is regarded by industry-watchers as a particularly strong offering, this year will also see big releases from David Attenborough and Jeremy Clarkson, alongside memoirs by comics Jo Brand, Frankie Boyle and Dara O’Briain, the late chef Keith Floyd, and Ozzy Osbourne. Though big name literary fiction releases often peak in early September to qualify for Booker prize consideration, popular fiction is well represented, including new novels by mega-sellers Kate Mosse, Audrey Niffenegger, Terry Pratchett and Jacqueline Wilson.