Julia Donaldson has increased her lead at the top of the all-time author volume chart, becoming the first writer to sell more than 50 million units through British bookshops since accurate records began.
Donaldson and her illustrators have now shifted 50.3 million copies via NielsenIQ BookScan’s Total Consumer Market. The milestone comes six months after Donaldson eclipsed JK Rowling to grab the top of the volume sales leaderboard.
Rowling sits on 47.8 million units, which includes co-authored titles and her crime series under the Robert Galbraith pseudonym. The Harry Potter creator is still by far the most valuable author through the TCM, on £395.1m. Donaldson has generated £249.8m for British booksellers, and if sales patterns stay consistent she will become the second author to eclipse the £250m TCM mark by the week ending 30th August 2025.
Donaldson’s top seller is her and illustrator Axel Scheffler’s 1999 paperback edition of The Gruffalo (Macmillan Children’s), which has shifted just under 1.5 million copies since launch. She has two other editions that have exceeded one million units (both illustrated by Scheffler and published by Macmillan Children’s): The Gruffalo’s Child and Room on the Broom. In fact, Donaldson’s top 10 bestsellers have all been collaborations with Scheffler, with the Lydia Monks-illustrated What the Ladybird Heard (Macmillan Children’s) in 11th place.
Various versions of the two Gruffalo titles – 214 separate editions have recorded sales through the TCM since records began – account for nearly 20% of Donaldson’s total, a percentage that may increase in autumn 2026 when the third title in the series is launched.
Just over 1.8 million copies of Donaldson’s totals have been notched up since January, generating nearly £9.6m through the tills. This puts Donaldson on course to further her record of consecutive 12-month periods of £10m-plus sales through BookScan to 16 years. And with a current £3.3m lead over the next bestseller (Rebecca Yarros), Donaldson is primed to become the UK’s top author in 2025, by TCM value terms, for an unprecedented fifth time on the trot.
There is a considerable gap between Donaldson and Rowling  and the next-bestselling authors. At 31.6 million units, James Patterson (and his many co-authors) is in third, with David Walliams (25.7 million), Mr Men creator Roger Hargreaves (21.4 million) and Fiona Watt (21.6 million) the other members of the 20 million-plus TCM units club.Â