The four-week sales skid came to an end last week, as unit sales of print books rose 1.6% over the week ended August 22, 2020, at outlets that report to NPD BookScan. And once again, it was fiction that bolstered sales.
Sales of adult fiction increased 26.3%, with three new releases leading the way. Bloodless by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child was the top seller in the category, selling more than 38,000 copies. In fourth place on the adult fiction list was Danielle Steel’s latest, Complications, followed by The Noise: A Thriller by James Patterson and J.D. Barker, which sold approximately 21,000 copies and 17,000 copies, respectively. Graphic novels had another big week, with sales of the format up 87% over last year.
Freed from comparisons to the first few weeks of huge sales of Midnight Sun by Stephenie Meyer a year ago, sales of young adult titles rose 18.4% over 2020. There was no new big book that lifted sales, but rather strength throughout the category. They Both Die at the End by Adam Silvera was #1 again, selling over 16,000 copies. For the year-to-date, the title has sold more than 444,000 copies.
Juvenile fiction sales increased 5.4% in the week. While Dav Pilkey’s latest book, Dog Man: Mothering Heights, stayed on top, selling more than 14,000 copies, backlist titles took most of the spots on the category top 10 list. Sales in juvenile nonfiction fell 11% in the week, and YA nonfiction dipped 3.5%.
The drop in adult nonfiction sales continued last week, with units down 6.8% even as comparisons to 2020 eased somewhat. Sean Hannity’s Live Free or Die was #1 at this point last year, selling nearly 57,000 copies. Topping the adult nonfiction chart last week was once again Mark Levin’s American Marxism, which sold almost 43,000 copies. New releases were in the third to fifth positions on the list. Woke, Inc. by Vivek Ramaswamy was in third place, followed by Mary Trump’s The Reckoning, which sold nearly 17,000 copies in its first week. (Her Too Much and Never Enough sold about 30,000 copies last year at this time.). Jackie Hill Perry’s Holier Than Thou also sold more than 14,000 copies.
