Easter Titles Help Lift Unit Sales 4.3% in Early April

With Easter having passed by this time in 2018 and the holy day still a few weeks away this year, overall unit sales of print books rose 4.3% in the week ended Apr. 6, 2019, over the comparable week last year, at outlets that report to NPD BookScan. Easter titles had the biggest impact in juvenile fiction, where three books were in the top 10: God Gave Us Easter by Lisa Tawn Bergren, which was #5 on the category list, sold more than 10,000 copies; Pete the Cat: Big Easter Adventure by James Dean sold nearly 10,000 copies and was #6 on the bestseller list; and Llama Llama Easter Egg by Anna Dewdney sold almost 9,000 copies and was #9 on the bestseller list. In juvenile nonfiction, where units rose 11.9% over the week ended Apr. 7, 2018, two recently released books led the way: We Are the Gardeners by Joanna Gaines sold more than 18,000 copies in its second week, putting it in the top spot on the category bestseller list, and Chelsea Clinton’s Don’t Let Them Disappear was in second place, with more than 12,000 copies sold in its first week. The top Easter book in the segment was The Story of Easter by Patricia Priddy, which sold nearly 5,000 copies, landing it in seventh place on the category bestseller list. Print units rose 5.5% over 2018 in adult nonfiction. Becoming by Michelle Obama was again #1, selling more than 32,000 copies, and The Matriarch, Susan Page’s biography of Barbara Bush, was #3 on the category list, selling more than 23,000 copies in its first week.

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