Print is Fighting Back

… or is it?

This Christmas has been hailed as the proof of the fightback against digital. The print book sale has reached a three-year high, and perhaps the hopeful excitement of this news should be more obvious, but it’s not.

The bookshops and online stores took £75.4m in sales in the week running up to the 22nd December – figures not seen since 2009’s £75.7m [figures provided by Nielsen BookScan]. Popular books included those with films – Life of Pi and The Hobbit – the usual celebrity biographies* (Miranda Hart’s Is It Just Me? and Bradley Wiggins’ My Time taking 2nd and 3rd on the charts respectively), and Jamie Oliver’s 15 Minute Meals sealing top spot, making it a 5th year as Christmas Number One for the chef.