Word to Your Dada
Tonight Show host Jimmy Fallon nabs the #3 and #4 spots on our Children’s Picture Book list with the picture and board book editions of Your Baby’s First Word Will Be Dada, illustrated by Miguel Ordóñez; each sold more than 21K copies. The books, released in the run-up to Father’s Day, showcase a variety of animals cajoling their offspring into saying Dada—and being met with moo, baa, and the like. Fallon’s no stranger to publishing; before Dada, two books for adults, 2011’s Thank You Notes and 2012’s Thank You Notes 2, saw strong sales, with a combined 146K print units to date. Here’s how those books’ first-week sales measure up against the new releases.
| Thank You Notes and Thank You Notes 2 | Your Baby’s First Word Will Be Dada (picture and board books) |
|---|---|
| 10,605 | 42,718 |
| (combined first-week print unit sales) | (combined first-week print unit sales) |
Movie Watch
The trade paperback edition of Andy Weir’s The Martian, an October 2014 release, had its best week yet, taking the #1 spot on our Trade Paperback list, with 14,702 print units sold. Why are unit sales up 163% this week over last? On June 8, 20th Century Fox released the official trailer for the film adaptation, which stars Matt Damon. It racked up millions of views almost immediately, and the studio moved up the movie’s release date, to October 2. (Victor Frankenstein, originally scheduled for that date, now has The Martian’s former release date of November 25.) Trade paper and mass market movie tie-in editions of The Martian will go on sale August 18.
In other movie news, the tie-in edition of Gillian Flynn’s Dark Places was released June 2 and lands on our list this week at #21, with 4,937 print units sold this week, up 28% over last week. The movie, starring Charlize Theron, was released in France April 8 and will open in the U.S. on August 7.
Page to Stage
The big winner at the 69th annual Tony Awards, held June 7, may have been book publishing. Fun Home, based on Alison Bechdel’s 2006 graphic memoir, won five awards, including best musical. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, adapted from Mark Haddon’s 2003 novel, also took home five awards, including best play. The trade paperback edition of each title saw a bit of a bump in the week following the ceremony; here’s a look at the numbers for each.
The Tony Effect: Print Unit Sales
| Week Ended June 14 | Increase Over Previous Week | |
|---|---|---|
| Fun Home | 1,993 | 101% |
| The Curious Incident... | 4,369 | 57% |
Top 10 Overall
| Rank | Title | Author | Imprints | Units |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Paper Towns | John Green | Penguin/Speak | 38,328 |
| 2 | Secret Garden | Johanna Basford | Laurence King | 5,602 |
| 3 | Finders Keepers | Stephen King | Scribner | 34,926 |
| 4 | The Girl on the Train | Paula Hawkins | Riverhead | 30,395 |
| 5 | Dork Diaries 9: Tales from a Not-So-Dorky... | Rachel Renée Russell | S&S/Aladdin | 26,471 |
| 6 | The Wright Brothers | David McCullough | Simon & Schuster | 24,046 |
| 7 | The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up | Marie Kondo | Ten Speed | 23,096 |
| 8 | All the Light We Cannot See | Anthony Doerr | Scribner | 22,630 |
| 9 | Oh, the Places You’ll Go! | Dr. Seuss | Random | 22,607 |
| 10 | Top Secret Twenty-One | Janet Evanovich | Bantam | 22,418 |
