The Weekly Scorecard: Tracking Unit Print Sales for Week Ending April 19, 2015

Unit sales of print books plunged 23% in the week ended Apr. 19, 2015, compared to the similar week last year, at outlets that report to Nielsen BookScan. The large decline was due to unfavorable comparisons with sales during Easter week of 2014 (which ended April 20), and a lack of new hits in the juvenile market. Juvenile fiction sales dropped 46%, year over year. In the week before Easter last year, the 100 bestselling juvenile titles sold more than 1.2 million copies, while the top 100 titles in week 16 of 2015 sold about 467,000 units. The #1 juvenile book in the week ended Apr. 19, 2015—Oh The Places You’ll Go, by Dr. Seuss—sold more than 24,000 copies, while last year’s #1 book in the week, Divergent, sold more than 70,000 units. The dismal sales week put juvenile fiction in the red for 2015, with units off 3%, compared to the same period last year. Unit sales in juvenile nonfiction fell 39% in week 16, with sales of the 100 top-selling titles off 64%. In the run-up to Easter last year, two Minecraft titles topped the juvenile nonfiction chart, selling 59,000 copies total, more than the combined sales of the10 bestselling books in week 16 of 2015, which total about 54,000 units. Despite the bad week, juvenile nonfiction unit sales were up 8% for the year. The adult nonfiction and fiction segments had small declines in the week, 1% and 3%, respectively.

Unit Sales of Print Books by Channel

Unit Sales of Print Books by Category

Unit Sales of Print Books by Format