BOOK OF THE WEEK
Can the High School Musical kids exterminate the Doctor's dominance?
In recent years the annual battle of the annuals was a simple face-off between Dennis the Menace and friends in The Beano and the wise-cracking Time Lord Dr Who. Last year, the famous doctor sold 264,949 copies, outselling Dennis et al by more than 50,000 copies. Interestingly however, sales of The Dr Who Annual decreased in 2007, having sold just over 300,000 units through Nielsen BookScan's TCM in 2006.
Retailers pointed towards an increase in the range of annuals published as a contributing factor to the fall, as the likes of Horrid Henry sold almost 130,000 copies in his debut year in an annual format.
Over the Christmas season this year, the annual battle is set to be even more competitive.
Between August and December, more than 150 annuals will be published in the UK, including debuts for Ben 10, Top Gear, Hannah Montana and In the Night Garden. But one annual that has trounced all challengers thus far in 2008 is Egmont's High School Musical Annual
2009. Over the past 10 weeks, the collection of activities and stories revolving around the students of East High has sold more than 100,000 copies through the TCM, some 40,000 more than its nearest time-travelling, Earth-saving rival.
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