Eighty-five days before December 25, Christmas has already invaded bookstores. As evidence Secret Santa. Advent romance of Sophie Jomainpublished on September 27 by Auzou and 5 editionse you top GRP/Weekly Books best sellers of the week.
After chocolates, candies or Playmobil, novels move to Advent-garde. At least that’s what Auzou editions are offering with the concept of “Advent novel”, works divided into 24 chapters, to be read every day in December while waiting for Christmas. Imagined in 2021 by the publishing house’s editorial manager for children’s novels, Jennifer Rossithese books are primarily aimed at young children. The mysterious reindeer of Natacha Godeaupublished that same year, launched the collection and met with great success with more than 13,000 copies sold according to GFK.
In Advent all!
This success encouraged the house to continue on this path with three to four new youth products per year. Last year, Auzou broadened its horizons by publishing the first Advent novel for adults, which in the process became an Advent romance, A heart for Christmas by Sophie Jomain, published October 6, 2023. Immediate success: of the 20,000 copies printed, all have sold out according to Auzou.
This year, the writer returned with a new work on the same theme: Secret Santa, published on September 27. This tells the story of a young girl, from a wealthy background, who, in order to compensate for her lack of motivation, joins an association of students in difficulty in December where she must organize the “best father Secret Christmas of his whole life.” Auzou this time saw things big with a print run of 100,000 copies.
10,000 copies sold in three days
According to the publisher, Secret Santa has already sold more than 10,000 copies in three days, raising the novel to 5e place in our ranking. This release is also an opportunity for Auzou to release, on the same date, A heart for Christmas in collector and standard editions. For the moment, these have sold, respectively, nearly 2,000 and around 4,000 units, according to the publishing house. Like Mariah Carey’s hit “All I Want for Christmas Is You”, broadcast on all radio stations from October, September 27 seems to mark the start of Christmas celebrations for Auzou editions.
The best sales of the week of September 23 to 29, 2024
Four new entrants join the Top 20 GFK/Weekly Books this week. Romance side Secret Santa. Advent romance (Auzou) takes 5e place (see elsewhere), when volume 2 of Kiara, diamond scratched by blood (The Archipelago) points to 6e rank. The new essay of Yuval Noah Harari, Nexus. A brief history of information networks, from the Stone Age to AI (Albin Michel), rises directly to 12e place ; finally the last novel of Bernard Werber, The Waltz of Souls (Albin Michel also) enters the top by taking 15e place.
