Release of ‘What Happened’ Can’t Stop Sales Slide

Not even the release of Hillary Clinton’s new book, What Happened, could end what is now a monthlong sales slide. For the week ended Sept. 17, 2017, unit sales of print books declined 2% from the comparable week in 2016 at outlets that report to NPD BookScan. What Happened was the top book in the week, selling more than 167,000 copies, but unit sales in adult nonfiction were still down 1% from the week ended Sept. 18, 2016. What Happened’s strong first week of sales was almost entirely offset by the 2016 debut of Killing the Rising Sun by Bill O’Reilly and Martin Dugard, which sold about 145,000 copies in its first week. Unit sales in adult fiction and juvenile fiction both were 4% lower in the week than in the similar one in 2016. Last year, the adult fiction category benefited from the film adaptation of The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins, which helped three editions of Girl sell almost 95,000 copies in the week. The #1 adult fiction title last week was Ken Follett’s A Column of Fire, which sold almost 49,000 copies. The release of the film It resulted in two editions of Stephen King’s novel landing in the second and fourth places on the category bestseller list, selling a combined 56,000 copies. In juvenile fiction, the top seller was Michael Vey: The Final Spark by Richard Paul Evans, which sold approximately 22,000 copies in its first week on sale; in the similar week last year, the #1 seller in the segment, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child by J.K. Rowling, sold more than 64,000 copies. The juvenile nonfiction category had a 1% gain from the comparable week in 2016. Coyote Peterson’s Brave Adventures: Wild Animals in a Wild World by Coyote Peterson was the top seller in the segment, selling 6,600 copies.

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