Walliams outsells Rowling to become top author of 2017

DAVID WALLIAMS was the biggestselling author of 2017, overtaking JK Rowling, with sales of more than £16million from his children’s books.

The writer, actor, comedian and television presenter outsold fellow children’s authors Julia Donaldson and Philip Pullman, thriller writers James Patterson and Dan Brown, and TV chefs Jamie Oliver and Mary Berry.

Walliams published his first book for children in 2008 and has been billed as the successor to Roald Dahl. His two most recent books, The World’s Worst Children and Bad Dad, helped boost his sales by almost 20 per cent on the previous year. He sold £16.57 million worth of books in 2017. Rowling came second in the list with sales of £15.47million, as readers continued to lap up her Harry Potter books.

The figures, compiled by Nielsen Bookscan and published by The Bookseller, also showed that women dominated literary fiction sales last year.

Nine out of the 10 bestselling literary authors were female, with Haruki Murakami the only man.