Kobo’s best-selling Top 10 ebooks of the year in the UK are all by women authors and almost all are in the thriller/crime genre.
Grey by E L James is at No 1 with Paula Hawkins’ runaway hit The Girl on the Train in second spot.
Psychological thriller The Lie by C L Taylor is third and Silent Scream by Angela Marsons takes fourth place.
Marsons started off as a self-publisher with relationship-based novels before starting to write crime novels featuring Detective Chief Inspector Kim Stone.
Her ebooks are now published by independent digital publisher Bookouture and she has sold over one million books worldwide this year, including over 600,000 sales of Silent Scream.
Bookouture was set up by Oliver Rhodes a couple of years ago and pays authors 45% of net ebook receipts, which is considerably higher than the 25% generally paid by traditional publishers on ebook sales.
The firm accepts unagented submisions from writers across a range of genres and it’s particularly looking for ‘entertaining, emotional stories for smart, modern women’.
The book that sparked off the wave domestic noir, Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn is fifth in the Kobo UK Top 10, boosted by the release of the film of the book earlier this year.
Elizabeth is Missing by Emma Healey takes sixth place, with The Miniaturist by Jessie Burton in seventh.
C L Taylor has her second book in the top 10 with The Accident in eighth position. Combined sales for The Lie and The Accident (print and ebook) hit the 500,000 mark in the UK in September.
The Ballroom Cafe by Ann O’Loughlin is ninth and Kobo’s UK Top 10 is completed by My Sister’s Secret by Tracy Buchanan.
The top male writer is Lee Child, who is in 11th place with Personal.