The week leading to Mother’s Day was a good one for print books in general and adult fiction in particular. Unit sales of fiction titles at the outlets tracked by Nielsen BookScan rose 20% in the week driven by sales of that new favorite Mother’s Day gift—one of the titles from E.L. James’ Fifty Shades trilogy.
According to BookScan, sales of Fifty Shades of Grey jumped 40% in the week before Mother’s Day compared to the earlier week, selling almost 443,000 copies, pushing total sales to about 1.5 million at outlets tracked by BookScan. Sales of the second title, Fifty Shades Darker, increased 30% over the prior week, with the book selling about 210,000 copies for a total of approximately 682,000 trade paperback copies. Fifty Shades Freed almost kept pace with Darker, as its sales rose 29% in Mother’s Day week over the previous week, selling 180,000 copies
