The Weekly Scorecard: Tracking Unit Print Sales for Week Ending November 29, 2015

Unit sales of print books fell 5% in the week ended Nov. 29, 2015, compared to the similar week last year, at outlets that report to Nielsen BookScan. The decline was due entirely to a 33% plunge in sales through the mass market channel compared to the week ended Nov. 30, 2014, which offset a 6% increase in sales through the retailer and club channel. The drop in sales through mass merchandisers, in turn, was caused by the absence of a Disney Press promotion for its books. During Thanksgiving week of 2014, seven Disney Press books were among the top 10 juvenile fiction bestsellers in the week and sold more than 560,000 copies; this year, there were no Disney Press titles among the category’s 10 bestsellers. The vast majority of the Disney books are sold through mass merchandisers. The lack of Disney titles was the main reason unit sales in the juvenile fiction segment fell 21% in the week compared to 2014. The strongest category was adult nonfiction, where units rose 10%. Johanna Basford’s Lost Ocean rose to #1 in the category for the week, selling just under 40,000 copies. The biggest debut was Randall Munroe’s Thing Explainer, which sold more than 34,000 copies in its first week, putting it in fourth place on the adult nonfiction list. The juvenile nonfiction category eked out a 1% unit gain in the week, as two editions of Carol Aebersold’s Elf on the Shelf ran one-two on the category list, selling a total of about 86,000 copies.

Unit Sales of Print Books by Channel

Unit Sales of Print Books by Category

Unit Sales of Print Books by Format