Gold Fingers: Devil May Care Smashes UK Sales Records.

 Sebastian Faulks has demonstrated that he has the midas touch for Penguin Books and the Ian Fleming Estate. His new Bond thriller Devil May Care has set a new record for Penguin’s hardback fiction titles in the UK. It sold 44,093 copies in the first four days of its publication, helped by an extensive media campaign in Britain. It also rapidly entered the No.1 spot in the UK’s wider hardback fiction bestseller lists, and has been reviewed extensively in British newspapers and on radio and TV.

As a result of all the literary interest in the new Bond book, Faulks has also received a boost to the sales of his other novels, which must be very pleasing to both Faulks and his publishers. On its release in Canada and the USA, which are in many ways tougher markets for British authors, Devil May Care entered at No.7 in Canada and a highly respectable No. 8 in the New York Times bestsellers list for ‘hardcover fiction’.

The Bentley Bond Special Series edition of Devil May Care, of which only 300 copies were produced for worldwide distribution,  has already sold out in the UK. The UK editions sold very fast, and are appearing on book collectors circuits at much higher prices. It is expected that demand will also be high in other countries and on the internet.

Ian Fleming wrote about owning three Bentley’s in his lifetime and, in the novels, James Bond shares his creator’s passion for the car, referred to as ‘the locomotive’. Faulks has renewed Bond’s love affair with the Bentley in the new novel, describing how 007 lovingly nurses the car down the Kings Road in Chelsea in 1967, at the height of the flower-power revolution. Bentley and Penguin Books collaborated closely on marketing the Bentley connection to help boost initial interest in the new novel.

As well as the special launch of the Faulks book with a Royal Navy escort on the River Thames in London, various publicity events have been held around the UK for Devil May Care by both the Borders and Waterstones bookstore chains, often in conjunction with the ‘Young Bond’ series of books by Charlie Higson and the new tie-in book For Your Eyes Only: Ian Fleming and James Bond by Ben Macintyre. The latter book was written to accompany the Ian Fleming exhibition being held at the Imperial War Museum (IWM) in central London. Both the IWM and the Barbican Centre in London have also mounted a series of special screenings of the Bond movies.

The organisers of the Fleming exhibition have reported record crowds and interest, and are said to be ‘very pleased’ at the way the Fleming exhibition has helped create wider public awareness of the Museum. The Fleming exhibition, which will eventually go on an international tour, and now the new Bond centenary novel, have helped create numerous articles in the media around the world, perhaps proving that, 100 years after the birth of his creator, James Bond truly remains a universal export.