With gains across all categories, unit sales of print books rose 16.9% last week over the week ended December 5. Adult nonfiction and juvenile nonfiction led the way with increases of 19.7% and 19.5%, respectively.
Barack Obama’s A Promised Land remained the top seller in the week, selling nearly 325,000 copies at outlets that report to NPD BookScan. Two newly released titles also contributed to the increase in adult nonfiction sales—Bag Man by Rachel Maddow sold over 46,000 copies and The Last Days of John Lennon by James Patterson sold more than 36,000 copies.
The increase in juvenile nonfiction sales was helped by The Try Not to Laugh Challenge by Crazy Corey, which saw a 75% increase in the week to almost 30,000 print copies sold. Other top sellers in the week were Dinah Bucholz’s The Unofficial Harry Potter Cookbook, which sold nearly 28,000 copies, and The Complete Cookbook for Young Chefs, which sold more than 24,000 copies. The Manual to Manhood by Jonathan Catherman was the top-selling title in young adult nonfiction, with sales jumping 68%, to 7,720 copies sold, helping to drive a 18.1% increase in print unit sales in the category.
Juvenile fiction sales increased 15.8% last week. Cat Kid Comic Club by Dav Pilkey was #1 in the category, selling more than 101,000 copies, a 19% decline from the prior week. Weekly gains came further down the list, such as Alice Schertle’s Little Blue Truck's Christmas, which had a 26% sales gain and sold nearly 42,000 copies in the week.
While sales are expected to increase in the weeks heading to Christmas, unit sales continue to run steadily ahead of 2019 as well. Print sales were up 10.5% last week over the week ended December 17, 2019. For the year to date, sales rose 8.2%.
