Go Set a Watchman sold more print copies in its first week than any book since Dan Brown’s The Lost Symbol, which was released in September 2009. Watchman sold more than 746,000 copies last week, while Symbol sold more than 1.1 million print copies in the week after its release, according to Nielsen BookScan.
A lot has changed in the publishing industry since Symbol was released—most notably the rise of e-books, which has cut significantly into print sales. Watchman’s first week sales total topped such quick-starting titles as Grey, Inferno, Steve Jobs, and Decision Points, making it the fastest-selling print book of the digital era. Below are the first-week sales for select big titles.
First-Week Print Sales of Select Bestsellers
| Title | Author | Pub Date | Units Sold |
|---|---|---|---|
| Go Set a Watchman | Harper Lee | July 2015 | 746,000 |
| Decision Points | George W. Bush | Nov. 2010 | 433,000 |
| Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Hard Luck | Jeff Kinney | Nov. 2013 | 384,000 |
| Steve Jobs | Walter Isaacson | Oct. 2011 | 379,000 |
| Inferno | Dan Brown | May 2013 | 368,000 |
| Grey | E.L. James | June 2015 | 354,000 |
| Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Long Haul | Jeff Kinney | Nov. 2014 | 318,000 |
