Six independent authors make the Top 100 Kindle authors of all time based on UK sales
Rachel Abbott is the UK’s most popular independent author with over one million eBooks sold globally
Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire is the most well-read place in the UK
Books that have been made into films dominate the Top 10 Kindle titles sold in the UK
Luxembourg—August 5th, 2015—Five years ago today, Amazon opened the UK Kindle Store—making it possible for customers to find a book, download it and start reading in 60 seconds.
“Throughout Amazon’s history we’ve worked relentlessly to provide more books by more authors to readers around the world, and Kindle has played a significant role in that,” said Jorrit Van der Meulen, Vice President, Kindle EU. “During the last five years we have not only seen established authors succeed on Kindle, but also enjoyed watching the rise of independent authors, who are reaching a global audience and earning royalties of up to 70% along the way.”
Connecting authors with readers
Since the launch of Kindle on Amazon.co.uk in 2010, five generations of Kindle devices have been shipped to customers in towns and cities across the UK. At launch, Kindle consisted of one e-reader and over 400,000 titles in the Kindle Store. Today, readers can choose from a family of devices and free apps that include an ever-growing list of features such as front-lit e-ink touch displays, a built-in dictionary, X-Ray and a Vocabulary Builder, a Kindle eBook catalogue rapidly approaching 4 million titles, and a subscription service offering unlimited access to over 800,000 titles. Kindle books are “Buy Once, Read Everywhere,” so customers can read their books on any device they choose, whether Kindle e-readers, Fire tablets, or Fire phones, through free Kindle apps on any iOS, Android, or Windows device, and on the web with Kindle Cloud Reader.
Hundreds of thousands of authors have self-published their books using Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP), reaching readers across the UK and the world. The most popular independent author in the Amazon.co.uk Kindle Store over the last five years is Rachel Abbott—a British businesswoman who published her first book, a thriller called Only the Innocent, through KDP after taking early retirement. Only the Innocent reached number one on the Kindle Best Seller chart in February 2012, and Rachel’s books have been an ever-present fixture on the Best Seller list on Amazon.co.uk ever since. In fact, she has gone on to sell over a million eBooks to Kindle readers worldwide, and published a further three titles.
“Since the day I published my first book to Kindle, my feet haven’t touched the ground,” said Rachel Abbott. “In 2010 I had retired and I thought the future was going to be one of relaxation—except that I wanted to write a book for my own pleasure. One day I decided to publish it to see what might happen, and that decision was life-changing. I’m now writing my fifth novel, have sold well over a million copies of the first four, and have a new full-time career as an author. Nobody, least of all me, could have seen that coming—but I’m loving every minute of it.”
At number two in the most popular independent author list is Derbyshire’s Tracy Bloom, author of Nobody Ever has Sex on a Tuesday—another title published through KDP to reach number one on the Kindle Best Seller list. Nick Alexander, originally from Margate and author of the best-selling Fifty Reasons series, is third. A total of six authors who used KDP to independently publish are in the Top 100 Kindle authors of all time based on UK sales.
Top Kindle titles of all time on Amazon.co.uk
The Top 10 Kindle books of all time is dominated by films and firsts. Eight of the Top 10 Kindle titles bought by Kindle readers in the UK have made it to the silver screen, led by EL James and her hugely popular Fifty Shades of Grey, which was originally self-published through KDP in 2011. Gone Girl, Life of Pi and Stieg Larson’s The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo also appear, alongside Jonas Jonasson’s The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out of the Window and Disappeared and Twelve Years a Slave. Thursdays in the Park, the debut novel from Hilary Boyd, and Watch Over Me, the first adult book from children’s author Daniela Sacerdoti, also appear in the Top 10.
The most well-read towns
Home to the most well-read Kindle users in the UK, based on the number of titles bought per capita, is Huntingdon in Cambridgeshire. A look at the content read in towns and cities across the UK also reveals that:
- Yorkshire is the romance capital of the north—Romance is the number one genre among Kindle readers in Leeds, Sheffield, Doncaster and Bradford
- Cambridge, the home of heavy reading—home to the world famous Cambridge University, Cambridge is the leading city for Society, Politics & Philosophy books, ahead of rival university city, Oxford
- Doncaster leads the north—Doncaster is the top town for Kindle reading in the whole of the north of England
- Dunfermline tops the reading charts in Scotland—ahead of both Edinburgh and Glasgow, Dunfermline is home to Scotland’s group of most veracious Kindle readers
- Scotland goes for crime—Crime, Thrillers & Mystery is the most popular genre in Edinburgh, Glasgow and Aberdeen—creating the most concentrated area of readers of this genre in the UK
- Belfast trails in Northern Ireland—it may be the capital city, but Belfast lags behind Newtownards as the capital of reading in Northern Ireland
- Wrexham reads most in Wales—the north leads the south in Wales, with Wrexham ahead of both Cardiff and Swansea when it comes to Kindle reading
Kindle also offers authors a way to reach readers with shorter form content through Kindle Singles—a section of the store intended for original fiction or nonfiction works longer than a magazine article, but shorter than a book. Susan Hill, Anthony Horowitz, and Lindsey Davis are among the well-known UK writers who have written original Kindle Singles and the most popular title among Kindle UK readers has been Karin Slaughter’s Thorn in My Side, ahead of Christmas Gifts at the Beach Café by Lucy Diamond and The Girl in Room Fourteen by Carol Drinkwater.
Amazon will be celebrating five years of Kindle with promotions on popular eBooks throughout the summer reading season, as well as promotions on Kindle devices. More information on the fifth anniversary of Kindle, can be found at www.amazon.co.uk/5-Years-of-Kindle.
Five years of Kindle on Amazon.co.uk by numbers
Top-selling authors
- EL James
- Lee Child
- Stieg Larsson
- Suzanne Collins
- George RR Martin
- Gillian Flynn
- Diane Chamberlain
- James Patterson
- Peter James
- Sylvia Day
Top-selling independent authors
- Rachel Abbott (#14 overall)
- Tracy Bloom (#47 overall)
- Nick Alexander (#49 overall)
- Nick Spalding (#52 overall)
- Kerry Wilkinson (#53 overall)
- Stephen Leather (#76 overall)
- Katia Lief (#101 overall)
- Paul Pilkington (#103 overall)
- Mark Edwards (#105 overall)
- JS Scott (#111 overall)
Top-selling Kindle books
- Fifty Shades of Grey by EL James
- Fifty Shades Darker by EL James
- Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn
- Fifty Shades Freed by EL James
- The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out of the Window and Disappeared by Jonas Jonasson
- Life Of Pi by Yann Martel
- The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson
- Watch Over Me by Daniela Sacerdoti
- Twelve Years a Slave by Solomon Northup
- Thursdays in the Park by Hilary Boyd
Top-selling independent books
- Only the Innocent by Rachel Abbott (#43 overall)
- Sleep Tight by Rachel Abbott (#55 overall)
- No-One Ever Has Sex On A Tuesday by Tracy Bloom (#59 overall)
- The Half-Life Of Hannah by Nick Alexander (#66 overall)
- Love... From Both Sides by Nick Spalding (#74 overall)
- Locked In by Kerry Wilkinson (#86 overall)
- The Back Road by Rachel Abbott (#89 overall)
- The Basement by Stephen Leather (#110 overall)
- The Magpies by Mark Edwards (#113 overall)
- Single Woman Seeks Revenge by Tracy Bloom (#137 overall)
Most well-read town/city overall (based on titles bought per capita)
- Huntingdon
- Doncaster
- Rochester
- Truro
- Chorley
- Spalding
- Dunfermline
- Sevenoaks
- Newton Abbot
- Chichester
Top-selling Kindle Singles
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- Thorn in My Side by Karin Slaughter
- Christmas Gifts at the Beach Café by Lucy Diamond
- The Girl in Room Fourteen by Carol Drinkwater
- Alan Turing: Unlocking the Enigma by David Boyle
- Hotel Paradise by Carol Drinkwater
- The Colour War by Jodi Picoult
- The 45% Hangover by Stuart MacBride
- A Breach of Security by Susan Hill
- Hunger by Susan Hill
- The Christmas List by Chrissie Manby
- Amazon UK Press Office
Email: pressoffice@amazon.co.uk
Tel: 0203 680 0888
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