In its first week on sale, JK Rowling’s highly-anticipated THE CASUAL VACANCY sold approximately 157,000 printed copies in the US in the sales outlets tracked by Nielsen Bookscan. In the UK, where Nielsen Bookscan tracks nearly the entire print sales landscape, they counted sales of roughly 125,000 copies in the first week on sale. The publisher has not reported on ebook sales in either territory.
Opening Sales
Publisher Puts Rowling Opening Sales At 375k
In a brief statement Wednesday, Little, Brown publisher Michael Pietsch said, “The Casual Vacancy has exceeded our expectations in its first six days in stores, selling 375,000 copies in all formats. We believe it is on track to become the year’s bestselling novel in hardcover.” Nielsen Bookscan tracked sales of approximately 157,000 print copies in outlets they track for the first four days on sale, implying roughly equal sales between print and ebook editions.
Sales After Oprah Endorsement Are Good, But Are They Wild?
The launch of Oprah’s Book Club 2.0 on May 30 with the selection of Cheryl Strayed’s WILD–and national media attention for Oprah’s return to book recommendations–has boosted the book’s profile and sales for certain. But will the cable + online Oprah profile come anywhere close to the impact of her syndicated television book endorsements? For the sales week ending June 10, Nielsen Bookscan reports print book sales of approximately 11,300 copies, up roughly 7,700 units from the prior week (with weekly sales having ranged from 3,100 to 4,400 copies over the previous four weeks). That is the book’s best week […]
Paolini Sales Nearly 500k; Isaacson Sells A Lot
Random House Children’s reports another very strong opening day for Christopher Paolini, with INHERITANCE selling 489,500 units yesterday (including print, ebook and audio editions), it’s first day on sale. The publisher says “hardcovers dominated the opening-day sell-through, with an 83/17 percent print to digital split.” Paolini’s BRISINGR sold approximately 550,000 units on opening day in the US in September 2008, back when Borders was still operating. In other sales news, Simon & Schuster continues to demur regarding any reporting of sales over the past two weeks for Walter Isaacson’s STEVE JOBS biography. But we’ve spoken to few executives familiar with […]
Briefs: Opening Week Sales for STEVE JOBS; The Numbers on Amazon Publishing; and More
Walter Isaacson’s biography of Steve Jobs sold more than 382,000 print copies in its first week on sale in the US, with an additional 37,244 copies sold in the UK, according to Bookscan numbers obtained by the Bookseller. The numbers make STEVE JOBS the 18th bestselling book of the year after just six days on sale, based solely on the outlets Bookscan reports from. It is not known yet how many digital copies Simon & Schuster has sold so far. Amazon Publishing has released 149 titles to date from its various imprints (with at least another hundred to follow in […]
Julian Assange WikiLeaks Canongate
It will come as no great surprise that Julian Assange has released correspondence with Canongate and purported transcripts of apparently-taped phone calls with Canongate publisher Jamie Byng. Though Canongate published the unauthorized draft in part due to admitted “financial imperative,” according to an email from Assange’s agent Caroline Michel, by going ahead with publication, Canongate now is obligated to pay Assange, “in accordance with the agreement, the remaining amounts of £225,000 on delivery of the complete manuscript and £175,000 on first UK publication.” (That should provide enough to pay back Knopf and still leave some for Assange.) As we noted […]