Further to our holiday sales analysis from a week ago, NPD Bookscan issued sales statistics for the final week of 2017, and the full year. Per the trends noted a week ago, physical sales as measured by service registered approximately 687 million units for 2017, up by 13 million units over 2016, for a 1.9 percent gain. (As also reported previously, since PubTrack Digital-measured ebook sales fell 13 million units in the first three quarters of the year, total units will be around flat.) Backlist was the driver, again, up 26.6 million books, for a 6.8 percent gain. That matches […]
Archives for January 2018
Book Bombogenesis: Fire and Fury All Over
Two intense storms hit the US on Wednesday, one caused by a book: Michael Wolff’s January 9 release FIRE AND FURY, which landed in a wave of embargo cracks and accelerated excerpts. As we covered Wednesday morning, the Guardian broke the embargo after obtaining a full copy of Michael Wolff’s forthcoming both Fire and Fury, they didn’t know how to read what they had: later Wednesday morning New York Magazine posted the moved-up version of their lengthy official excerpt in reaction, and the book quickly rose to the top of bestseller lists based on pre-orders. NBC also acquired a full copy, and […]
Cantu’s The Line Becomes a River Tops February’s Indie Next List
The ABA named Francisco Cantu’s The Line Becomes a River as their No. 1 pick for February. Mira T. Lee’s Everything Here Is Beautiful also makes the list, and is available to sample now in our Buzz Books 2017 Fall/Winter collection. The rest of the picks: The Great Alone, by Kristin Hannah How to Stop Time, by Matt Haig An American Marriage, by Tayari Jones I Am, I Am, I Am, by Maggie O’Farrell Only Killers and Thieves, by Paul Howarth Red Clocks, by Leni Zumas Need to Know, by Karen Cleveland Eternal Life, by Dara Horn Heart Berries, by Terese Marie Mailhot […]
Fire and Fury Excerpt Lands with Impact (Trump Didn’t Want to be President, Didn’t Expect to Win)
Though the Guardian broke the embargo with a full copy of Michael Wolff’s forthcoming both Fire and Fury, they didn’t know how to read what they had: later Wednesday morning New York Magazine moved up their lengthy official excerpt in reaction, and the book quickly rose to the top of bestseller lists based on pre-orders. A second excerpt is now up at the Hollywood Reporter (where Wolff is a columnist). Originally it was being held for next week’s print issue, but then the magazine announced it would land online Thursday morning, with “lots of stuff still to be revealed.” NBC also acquired […]
People, Etc.: Fred Bass Dies at 89, and More
Longtime owner of The Strand bookstore Fred Bass, 89, died on Wednesday at home in Manhattan of congestive heart failure. He started working at the store, founded by his father, when he was 13, and just retired last November. During that time, he oversaw the store’s significant growth from its original home on Fourth Street with 70,000 volumes to “the largest used-book store in the world” on Broadway — where he bought the store’s building for $8.2 million in 1997 — with millions of volumes and a storage warehouse in Brooklyn. The NYT quotes a remark Bass made to New York […]
Book TV: The New York Times Pairs with PBS NewsHour; Chicago’s Book Hunt Pilot
The New York Times and PBS NewsHour will launch a collaborative monthly book club, Now Read This, starting with Jesmyn Ward’s National Book Award-winning novel Sing, Unburied, Sing. The book club will debut tonight on PBS NewsHour, and over the course of the month readers can join in on both outlet’s platforms and websites as well as a dedicated Facebook group. The month’s reading will culminate in the author being interviewed by NewsHour arts correspondent Jeffery Brown. “With the launch of ‘Now Read This’, we’re excited to expand the NewsHour’s decades long commitment to coverage of books and the arts,” […]