Bestseller Stat Shot
Ian McEwan’s had a rare career—he’s won the Booker and Jerusalem prizes and is a Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire, among other distinctions, as well as being a critical darling who writes thoughtful, engaged-with-the-zeitgeist bestsellers that happen to make good movies (see Atonement or Enduring Love; Sweet Tooth is in development). His newest novel is no exception. The Children Act, about an English judge’s involvement in a case brought against a family who refuse medical treatment for their leukemia-stricken son, landed at #7 on our Hardcover Fiction list, selling more print copies in its first week than new titles from the Robert B. Parker and Agatha Christie brands. And, yet, despite the strong start, The Children Act is actually slower out of the gate than McEwan’s four previous books. Here are first-week print sales of each book, going back to 2005’s Saturday (Solar, as you may be able to tell from the sales numbers, was McEwan’s first novel published in the e-reader era).
| Title | Year | First-week sales |
|---|---|---|
| The Children Act | 2014 | 8,098 |
| Sweet Tooth | 2012 | 14,217 |
| Solar | 2010 | 11,477 |
| On Chesil Beach | 2007 | 20,105 |
| Saturday | 2005 | 20,689 |
From the Newsletters
Ever wonder how big the biggest book in the world could possibly be? Or how many characters it could have? Randall Munroe, former NASA roboticist and author of the nonfiction bestseller What If?, provides the answers.
A visit to Enchanted Lion Press, a picture book publisher with roots in Red Hook, Brooklyn.
Graphic novel sales are up 10% so far in 2014. Here’s why.
Hearty vegan comfort food? It can be done, and a slew of new books show how.
Don’t know a prologue from a preface?
An intro from a foreword? Check out our handy guide to front matter.
Blogs
What you may have missed if you haven’t stopped by the Publishers Weekly Tumblr lately: more books get the phantom cover treatment; how long it will take you to read famous books, from The Glass Menagerie to the A Song of Ice and Fire series; and the definition of “flapdoodle.”
What writers can learn from stand-up comedians.
Podcasts
Lisa Charleyboy talks about the essays, poetry, and artwork contained in Dreaming in Indian: Contemporary Native American Voices (Annick), a new anthology she co-edited.
PW comics reviews editor Heidi MacDonald asks comics artists and publishers at the Baltimore Comic Con, “What was the first comic that blew your mind?”
PW senior writer Andrew Albanese discusses our 2013 Salary Survey and looks ahead to the Frankfurt Book Fair in October.
The most-read review on publishersweekly.com last week was A Walk Among the Tombstones by Lawrence Block (Morrow).
Biographer Justin Martin discusses his new book, Rebel Souls: Walt Whitman and America’s First Bohemians (Da Capo). Plus, PW senior editor Mark Rotella explores a new Italian publishing initiative intended to jumpstart book exports to America.
