The Weekly Scorecard: Tracking Unit Print Sales for Week Ending May 27, 2014

Unit sales of print books fell 1% in the week ended May 27, 2014, compared to the similar week in 2013, at outlets that report to Nielsen BookScan. Once again, the decline was due to a weak performance in the adult fiction segment, where unit sales fell 16%. There were no major new adult fiction debuts in the week, and the mass market edition of Dan Brown’s Inferno was the top seller in the category, with just over 29,000 copies purchased at outlets that report to BookScan. There were no major debuts in the juvenile fiction segment either, but sales of the two paperback editions of John Green’s The Fault in Our Stars totaled over 142,000 units, up from about 127,000 copies in week 21, and the category as a whole posted a 14% gain over the week ended May 26, 2013. The juvenile nonfiction list saw a 12% increase. The Ultimate Sticker Book: Frozen was the big winner in the segment last week: it had a 90% increase over week 21, selling nearly 11,000 copies. Sales in the board book segment also continued to be strong, up 19% in the week ended May 25, 2014, over the similar week last year.

Unit Sales of Print Books by Channel

Unit Sales of Print Books by Category

Unit Sales of Print Books by Format

Source: Nielsen BookScan and Publishers Weekly. Nielsen BookScan’s U.S. Consumer Market Panel covers approximately 80% of the print book market and continues to grow.