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PM Tips: Get Real Book Sales Data

March 15, 2023
By Michael Cader

Finding out the actual sales for a book—whether it’s your own title, or a comp title you are curious about—can be quite difficult. The gold-standard data service publishers, retailers and agents use to track actual retail sales of trade print books in the US is Bookscan. (It includes Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Books-a-Million, Costco, Target, Walmart, and many other general and specialty retailers selling books, plus over 800 independent bookstores, covering approximately 85 percent of trade print sales in the US.)

As of this week, Bookscan’s parent company has changed its name, so you will see it referred to as Circana Books or Circana Bookscan. (The owner used to go by NPD; previously, Bookscan had been owned by Nielsen.)

Standard subscriptions start at four figures annually, but through a special initiative, authors who belong to PM can enroll for a monthly data package that lets you track sales on up to 5 ISBNs a month, for an additional $25 a month.

For each of the five ISBNs you enter, you’ll see US print unit sales for the most recent sales week, the year to date, and lifetime. And for titles from some major publishers, you will also see actual ebook sales. You can learn more and sign up here.

Filed Under: Author Lunch, Free, Publishers Marketplace Tips, Web Only

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