16th December 2018
David Walliams' The Ice Monster, was the most popular book page on www.toppsta.com this year, despite only publishing a few weeks ago.
And Walliams' 2017 novel, Bad Dad came second.
It's that time of year when I start feeling reflective and feel it's close enough to the end of the year to start digging into our data. So I thought I'd share a few of our most popular books, authors, series and giveaways.
After Walliams, we have the much-loved festive tale, The Night I Met Father Christmas by Ben Miller (Simon & Schuster); the brilliant debut Boy Underwater by Adam Baron (HarperCollins); Hey, Who's in the Loo by independent publisher, Red Robin Books; a beautiful illustrated Anthology of Intriguing Animals (DK); The Boy Who Flew by Fleur Hitchcock (Nosy Crow) which isn't out until March 2019; Snowball the gorgeous festive picture book from Sue Hendra and Paul Linnet (Macmillan); the new Mary Poppins book illustrated by Lauren Child (HarperCollins); and the new Where's Wally: The Spectacular Spotlight Search which has captured the imagination of Where's Wally fans old and new.
In terms of reviews, the book with the most reviews this year is Oi Goat! The World Book Day title by the powerhouse couple Kes Gray and Jim Field. But one of the most interesting things this year has also been the growth in the number of adults reading and reviewing books on the website, particularly in the Middle Grade age range. The brilliant House with Chicken Legs by Sophie Anderson is currently the book with the most reviews from adults.
(Measured by number of visits on www.toppsta.com).
When a reader adds a review to Toppsta, we always ask what made them want to read this particular book. Rather pleasingly, the most popular answer is, "I like this author" (closely followed by "I liked the cover". Clearly authors are key, which is why it's so important to get children to try new books and why readers love our giveaways.
A few surprises here (Walliams isn't number 1!) and relatively new author Zanna Davidson is at number 7. Zanna wrote the wonderful Billy and the Mini Monsters series which I can highly recommend as the perfect first chapter book.
Also, interestingly, after Nick Sharratt, our next most popular 'page' was one of our reviewers! Reviewer 'rda' joined in June 2016 and has written 380 reviews with their 8 year old child, 'rsa'. Clearly other readers now want to know which books 'rda' and 'rsa' are enjoying and keep up to date with their recommendations. We have our very own experts within the community!
8. Enid Blyton
9. Roald Dahl
(Measured by number of visits on www.toppsta.com).
Readers love a good series and I have to admit, as a parent I love them too. It's wonderful to see the kids' excitement and anticipation waiting for the next book and it certainly makes book-buying simpler too.
1. Tom Gates
2. Dork Diaries
4. Dog Man
6. Magnus Chase
8. Geek Girl
9. Claude
10. Rugby Spirit
This is measured by the number of people who entered our giveaways via www.toppsta.com, which is where we get the majority of our entries. It doesn't include any entries via social media.
There's a large number of christmassy books here, partly because our website traffic has grown substantially in the latter half of this year (we've grown from 10,000 visitors/month back in Jan to nearly 45,000 visitors for the 30 days up to 15th December) plus we've recently run two really popular features, "Our Favourite Christmas Books" and our Christmas-themed, picture book, advent calendar which is currently running on Instagram.
1. Where's Wally? Spectacular Spotlight Search
3. An Anthology of Intriguing Animals
4. Snowball
5. Mary Poppins Illustrated Gift Edition
6. The Night Before The Night Before Christmas
..............
Georgina (Toppsta Founder)
