Print Units Have Another Down Week in August

A big gain in the juvenile fiction category couldn’t stem the slide of weekly declines of print unit sales in August compared to last year. Units dipped 0.8% in the week ended Aug. 17, 2019, compared to the week ended Aug. 18, 2018, at outlets that report to NPD BookScan. Print unit sales jumped 10.3% in juvenile fiction, led by Dog Man: For Whom the Ball Rolls by Dav Pilkey, which sold more than 242,000 copies in its first week. Pilkey’s previous Dog Man book, Dog Man: Brawl of the Wild, was released last year in December and has since sold more than 842,000 copies at outlets that report to BookScan, including 581,000 copies so far in 2019. Print unit sales rose by just under 1% in adult fiction compared to 2018. Once again Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens was #1 in the category, with more than 40,000 copies sold. The top-selling new title was The Bitterroots by C.J. Box, which sold over 17,000 copies. The adult nonfiction segment had a 6.5% unit decline compared to 2018, when Girl, Wash Your Face by Rachel Hollis was #1, selling more than 59,000 copies, and Unhinged by Omarosa Manigault Newman, one of the last big books critical of President Trump released in 2018, sold 32,000 copies in its first week on sale. The top adult nonfiction seller last week was Educated by Tara Westover, which sold just over 17,000 copies. Units fell 7.7% in young adult fiction, due mainly to softness in midlist books as sales of titles at the top of the charts were comparable in 2018 to the week ended Aug. 17, 2019. The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton was #1 last week, selling over 11,000 copies.

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