Australians were hungry for more in 2024 from RecipeTin Eats founder Nagi Maehashi who topped the country’s bestseller list for the second year as her two cookbooks ruled the charts.
Readers devoured Maehashi’s second cookbook, RecipeTin Eats: Tonight, which sold nearly 300,000 copies in less than three months. It was the highest-selling title of the year, according to figures from Nielsen BookScan.
Nagi Maehashi confirmed she has the recipe for success with her second book Tonight.Credit: James Brickwood
The Sydneysider’s first release, RecipeTin Eats: Dinner, followed with 177,000 sales, after topping the list in 2023. Dinner is now the biggest-selling cookbook in Australia since records began, ahead of Jamie Oliver’s 2012 Jamie’s 15-Minute Meals and Kim McCosker and Rachael Bermingham’s 2010 4 Ingredients.
Maehashi, who left a high-flying career in corporate finance to launch the blog RecipeTin Eats in 2014, has since sold more than 895,000 books in Australia generating $25.5 million.
Pan MacMillan Australia’s publishing director Ingrid Ohlsson said Maehashi (who is a Good Food columnist) was a once-in-a-generation phenomenon.
“There is nothing flash-in-the-pan about Nagi’s success. She is tirelessly and forensically focused on meeting everyday people where they are on their cooking journeys. Her mission is to ‘get us’, not ‘impress us’. This is why we can’t get enough,” Ohlsson said.
Liane Moriarty’s 10th novel Here One Moment was the top fiction title of 2024, and third overall after Maehashi’s cookbooks, selling 158,000 copies, all in the final quarter of the year. The only other Australian novel to crack the top 20 was Trent Dalton’s third novel, 2023’s Lola in the Mirror, with 80,000 copies sold in 2024. Other strong local fiction performers included Dervla McTiernan’s crime novel What Happened to Nina?, Sarah A. Parker’s romantasy When the Moon Hatched and Tim Winton’s dystopian novel Juice.
It Ends With Us was boosted by the tie-in to its controversial film adaptation.Credit: AP
BookTok continued to shape fiction sales, with older releases and genre novels dominating the top 10. Colleen Hoover’s 2016 novel It Ends With Us ranked as the fourth-highest seller, boosted by the release of a new edition tied to the controversial film adaptation starring Blake Lively. Desire still burns bright for romantasy with Sarah J. Maas’ 2015 A Court of Thorns and Roses and Rebecca Yarros’ 2023 Iron Flame the next highest-selling novels, followed by Freida McFadden’s 2022 thriller The Housemaid. One of the year’s most anticipated literary fiction releases, Sally Rooney’s fourth novel Intermezzo, ranked 19th with 73,000 copies sold, matching the sales of her third novel, Beautiful World, Where Are You, released in 2021.
The top fiction title of the year.
John Farnham’s hardback The Voice Inside (written with Poppy Stockell) defied sluggish non-fiction sales and cost of living challenges to take ninth spot with 93,000 copies sold after the autobiography performed strongly in the lead-up to Christmas.
While genre fiction and cookbooks saw growth, overall sales in the Australian book market dropped in 2024. The volume of titles sold dropped by 1.3 per cent from 69.8 million to 68.9 million, representing a decline in value of about $40 million to $1.29 billion. Sales have dropped the last two years yet are still tracking above 2021 and 2020, and pre-pandemic 2019 levels. The data captures printed books only.
Australian Publishers Association chief executive Patrizia Di Biase-Dyson highlighted significant growth in the e-book and audiobook markets, noting that more than 150 million library loans were recorded in the latest national borrowing data.
“The average sales price for a book is down, with books providing great value for consumers. Despite big increases in supply chain costs for publishers and retailers, those costs are not being passed on to consumers,” Dyson said.
Biase-Dyson said it was promising to see Australian authors hold their ground against international titles, claiming the top three spots on the year’s bestseller list.
“Despite being in a global English-language market, the bestselling three books are from Australian authors, with local publishing teams. This is a real success for the Australian publishing industry, and for readers, who want to see local stories and content on their shelves,” Biase-Dyson said.
While Maehashi is not expected to serve up thirds in 2025, there will be significant international releases from Emily Henry, Rebecca Yarros, Taylor Jenkins Reid, and Suzanne Collins, as well as notable local releases from Geraldine Brooks, Hannah Kent, and Michael Robotham.
What was your favourite book of 2024? Tell us in the comments below, and discover the books we’re excited to read this year here.
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