INAUGURAL SPECSAVERS BESTSELLER AWARDS TO RECOGNISE OUTSTANDING BOOK SALES IN ALL FORMATS AT JANUARY EVENT
Nielsen Book and Specsavers today announced the new Specsavers Bestseller Awards, powered by Nielsen Book, which will be officially launched at a special ceremony on 25 January 2017. The awards will celebrate success in book sales across all formats for the first time, and will replace the Nielsen Book Gold and Platinum Awards, which have used sales data to recognise achievements within the book industry since 2001. In addition to the established Platinum (1,000,000 copies) and Gold (500,000) Bestseller Awards, new Silver Awards will be introduced for books that have sold over 250,000 copies in the UK since 1998, as well as new Honorary Platinum Award that will honour authors whose collective titles have achieved similar success over in the same period. The Sunday Times, for decades identified as the home of bestseller charts, will also be the official awards media partner.
“Nielsen Book has long been planning a revamp to its existing awards due to changes in the book trade,” explained Andre Breedt, Director Nielsen Book Research UK. “We are incredibly excited to be working with Specsavers to launch Bestseller Awards that reflect the fast-changing book world. In recent years we have seen unprecedented levels of sales from authors such as J.K. Rowling and Dan Brown, while sales of backlist titles by authors such as J.R.R. Tolkien and Harper Lee, bolstered by tie-ins and media exposure, remind us that success can have a long life. We have also seen the digital revolution offer readers and authors new ways to connect. By partnering with Specsavers, long a supporter of books and a well-respected brand familiar to millions of readers, we aim to amplify what it means to be a bestseller. This will begin by recognising million copy marvels of 2016.”
Dame Mary Perkins, Chair and co-founder of Specsavers, said: “There is an obvious connection between reading and glasses and many of our customers enjoy nothing better than losing themselves in a good book, myself included. I am looking forward to seeing if there are any titles that I have yet to read. I sincerely hope that more people will join us in support of the industry and authors alike, to buy and share the most popular reads in Britain today.”
The endorsement of the Specsavers Bestseller Awards, powered by Nielsen Book data, will provide consumers with additional confidence in making purchase decisions as well as encourage readers to try authors that are new to them.
Nielsen Book has been the official tracker of print book sales through Nielsen BookScan for the last 16 years. With the addition of e-book tracking through Nielsen PubTrack Digital sales can now be comprehensively measured, making the oft-exploited term ‘bestseller’ quantifiable and trustworthy for the benefit of readers everywhere.