The Weekly Scorecard: Tracking Unit Print Sales for Week Ending March 19, 2017

Unit sales of print books at outlets that report to NPD BookScan were 1% lower in the week ended Mar. 19, 2017, than in the similar week in 2016. Print unit gains of 7% in adult fiction and 2% in adult nonfiction were offset by declines in juvenile print sales. In the adult fiction category, the unit increase was led by strong sales of Wm. Paul Young’s The Shack and The Obsession by Nora Roberts. The books ran one-two atop the segment bestseller lists, with The Shack selling more than 26,000 copies and The Obsession selling more than 25,000 copies. The Cutthroat by Clive Cussler sold more than 19,000 copies in its first week on sale, landing it in fourth place on the category bestsellers list. The slight gain in unit sales in the adult nonfiction segment was helped by the solid debut of Michael Savage’s Trump’s War, which sold nearly 18,000 copies, putting it in second place on the category list. Topping the adult nonfiction list was the long-running bestseller Milk and Honey by Rupi Kaur, which sold more than 19,000 copies. Print unit sales in juvenile nonfiction had a 10% decline in the week. Sales of the 100 bestselling titles in the category fell by about 30% from the similar week in 2016; the early Easter date last year (March 27) spurred juvenile book sales, including of The Story of Easter by Patricia Pingry (which was fourth place in juvenile nonfiction, with more than 11,000 copies sold). Happy Easter Mouse! by Laura Joffe Numeroff was the bestselling Easter book in juvenile fiction last year at this time, selling more than 18,000 copies. Total juvenile unit sales were down 2% in 2017 compared to a year ago.

Unit Sales of Print Books by Channel

Unit Sales of Print Books by Category

Unit Sales of Print Books by Format