Over 500 new books will be published on Super Thursday, October 8, as the publishing industry prepares its heavy guns for the Christmas market,
This year 503 books will be published in hardback on Super Thursday, which is twice as many as are published in an average week.
Somewhat unusually in industry terms, Pharrell Williams signed a four-book deal on the back of a hit single Happy, which sold 13.9m copies last year, becoming the most downloaded track in UK history. An initial print run of 250,000 copies of the book, simply entitled Happy, will be published on October 8.
Tom Jones and Terry Wogan will have memoirs out the same day in good time for the Christmas market. Wogan's Those Were the Days is described as “tales of love, loss and friendship from a national treasure”. The book is believed to be an update on his last autobiography, Is It Me?, published in 2001. Meanwhile, new children’s books are eagerly expected on October 8 from Wexford-man Eoin Colfer, Michael Morpurgo (War Horse) and Jacqueline Wilson.
On the loftier side of things, Charles Moore’s second volume of his Margaret Thatcher biography and Justin Bates’ life of the poet Ted Hughes will also appear on October 8.
