The Weekly Scorecard: Tracking Unit Print Sales for Week Ending February 12, 2017

Unit sales of print books fell 4% in the week ended Feb. 12, 2017, compared to the similar week last year, at outlets that report to NPD BookScan. The decline was due entirely to plunging sales through the mass merchandiser channel. Sales of print units dropped 27% at mass merchandisers compared to the week ended Feb. 14, 2016, and were down 16% for the first six weeks of 2017 over the same period a year ago. Unit sales through the retail and club segment were up 1% in both the week and the year-to-date period. The mass merchandiser channel is being hurt by softness in board book sales. The format, which has had solid gains in the past two years, saw units fall 8% in the week ended Feb. 12, 2017, and sales were just about flat in the first six weeks of the year. Mass market paperbacks, another book staple of mass merchandisers, had a 5% decline in the week and an 8% drop for the year to date. Among the major book segments, unit sales of juvenile fiction fell 12% in the week, due to a substantial drop in sales among the top 100 bestsellers compared to the similar week last year. The top-selling title on the juvenile bestseller list, King’s Cage by Victoria Aveyard, sold more than 23,000 copies in its first week. Unit sales of juvenile nonfiction declined 6%. The top seller in the category remained First 100 Words by Roger Priddy, which sold just under 8,000 copies.

Unit Sales of Print Books by Channel

Unit Sales of Print Books by Category

Unit Sales of Print Books by Format

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