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 […]
Opening Sales
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 […]
Strong Start for O’Reilly’s Lincoln Book
Holt is celebrating strong first-day sales for Bill O’Reilly’s KILLING LINCOLN, a departure for the television host and his first book for the house, reuniting with his publisher from Random House, Steve Rubin. The publisher says the opening day sales alone were in excess of O’Reilly’s first-week sales on his last two hardcover releases, indicating combined print and ebook sales in excess of 30,000 units, and day two sales “are keeping apace.” Rubin says “contemporary times makes it something people really want to read. He feels like Lincoln was a great leader, and what we lack now is leadership.” O’Reilly […]
Big Opening Day Sales for George RR Martin and Jaycee Dugard
Two of the biggest releases this week more than lived up to advance billing. Random House announced that George R.R. Martin‘s A DANCE WITH DRAGONS sold 298,000 copies on its first day on sale in North America, comprising 170,000 printed copies, 110,000 ebooks and 18,000 audio units. President and publisher Gina Centrello says in a release the sales are “wildly exceeding our retailers’ most optimistic expectations. With George’s outstanding print edition sales, his readers are clearly indicating they want to place this new hardcover on their bookshelves alongside his earlier volumes.” RHPG publisher of digital content Scott Shannon echoes for the […]
Wimpy Kid More Nearly Doubles Hefty Bush Opening-Day Sales
Jeff Kinney’s DIARY OF A WIMPY KID: The Ugly Truth, the fifth in his bestselling series, sold over 375,000 copies in its first day on sale according to publisher Abrams. The launch included an event at Book People in Austin, TX, where the author addressed over 1,600 fans to kick off his tour. The specially-branded tour bus will take Kinney to events in Little Rock, Memphis, Nashville, and Birmingham, AL, with up to 2,000 fans expected in the various venues. That opening-day sale is said to be up 50 percent from the big first day for the fourth book in […]