Next week will see the crowning of a new Booker Prize winner, and booksellers say the biggest award in fiction retains its transformative impact on sales.
Judges have spent the last nine months deliberating over a shortlist of six titles in contention to win this year’s award, among them heavyweight authors such as American author Elizabeth Strout and previous winners Marlon James and Douglas Stuart, alongside newcomers to the prize Rebecca Perry, M John Harrison and Luke Kennard.
Each of the books has received a significant boost in publicity following their inclusion on the shortlist, with the winner expected to see a further surge in sales.
Despite the rise of BookTok and social media, the prestigious literary award, which has celebrated the best works of long-form fiction since 1969, is still a reliably powerful driver in sales, say booksellers.
In the first week after winning the prize last year, sales of Flesh by David Szalay got a boost of 1,441 per cent, according to NielsenIQ BookData, with publisher Jonathan Cape racing to restock bookshops. The 2024 winner Samantha Harvey had similar success, with her novel Orbital enjoying a sales increase of 818 per cent.
The so-called “Booker bounce” – a term used to describe the immediate boost in sales of a title following its shortlisting or win – is bigger in volume than any associated with any other prize, according to the Bookseller.
The Booker still “generates a huge extra excitement around reading, and an uptick in fiction buyers certainly”, said Brett Wolstencroft, the manager at Daunt Books in Marylebone.
“Even in a bookshop like ours, where staff are proactive and happy to recommend, readers can be uncertain faced with a wall of new fiction, and the Booker gives people a manageable, curated list of books to think about, especially with the ‘this should have been on the longlist/shortlist’ type debate that goes on around it.”
Bea Carvalho, head of books at Waterstones, similarly said that readers regard the prize “as a signal of quality and trustworthy recommendation”.
That trust translates directly to sales, with this year’s shortlist producing a week-on-week uplift of over 1,500 per cent through Waterstones on announcement, with M John Harrison’s shortlisted sci-fi epic The End of Everything enjoying the highest increase of 740 per cent.
Independent bookshop Chorlton in Manchester, meanwhile, has reported a less dramatic spike in sales, with customers tending to favour the more familiar authors on the shortlist, such as Elizabeth Strout or Douglas Stuart, who are nominated for The Things We Never Say and John of John, respectively.
“Those have been selling much better than other titles on the shortlist, but then, those are authors who are already well-liked by our customers,” said Andy Murray, a long-time staff member at Chorlton.
The perceived “accessibility” of a Booker book will also always have an impact on its sales.
“If a book is already out in paperback rather than still in hardback, more people are likely to take a punt on them,” he said. “Likewise if the books are shorter and smaller – they’re easier to fit in your holiday baggage allowance!”
The effect of the Booker Prize varies enormously, added Wolstencroft. “For a hugely popular established author like Elizabeth Strout, her book was already flying before the shortlisting this year, whereas, say Rebecca Perry’s brilliant debut May We Feed the King, wasn’t but has since,” said Wolstencroft.
“A novel perceived to be widely accessible – like last year’s [winner by David Szalay] Flesh or Douglas Stuarts’ Shuggie Bain, or Samantha Harvey’s Orbital, can have sales go into, well, orbit.”
While the shortlisted books tend to enjoy a boost in sales and publicity in the immediate aftermath of the shortlist or winner announcement, the effect can be more long-lasting.
“Yes, a win will always have some lasting impact on an author’s readership, though it may fade to a degree – James Kelman’s extraordinary 1994 winner How Late it Was, How Late is not often enough talked about now,” said Wolstencroft. By contrast, Salman Rushdie’s 1981 winner Midnight’s Children remains a steady backlist seller, as does Kazuo Ishiguro’s 1989 historical novel The Remains of the Day.
The influence of the Booker Prize remains significant, said booksellers – even against a changing landscape of book marketing and discovery led by BookTok and other social media.
“I think the Booker will remain influential for new fiction, but clearly social media is already powerfully driving and shaping reading habits and generating huge excitement around reading,” said Wolstencroft, pointing to the surge in popularity in sales of classics, Greek myths and fantasy.
“This is especially true amongst younger female readers amongst whom the excitement around books and reading is greater than I can recall in 30 odd years of bookselling.”
The winner of the Booker prize will be announced on 9 November, and receive £50,000 and a trophy named Iris, named after 1978 winner Iris Murdoch.
