Conservative media personality and provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos's literary debut, Dangerous, hit the shelves last week, and his public relations team told PW that 100,000 copies, including pre-orders, sold on Amazon on its release date. NPD BookScan tells another story.
Outlets that report to BookScan, including Amazon, reported a total of 18,268 copies sold in the book's first week. The numbers place Dangerous third on the adult nonfiction list, and sixth overall in the country. The book hit #20 in the Apple iBooks store.
Amazon's own lists tacitly corroborate these numbers. While Dangerous was indeed the #1 bestseller and #1 new release on Amazon immediately following its July 4 publication, it is currently at #15 on Amazon's new releases list, and does not land in the top 100 on its bestsellers list as of this writing.
Last week, a source familiar with the activity of the book on Amazon indicated that the claim from Yiannopoulos's team that the book had sold 100,000 copies (including pre-orders) via the e-tailer was incorrect, and that the figure was inflated.
Yiannopoulos released the book to grand fanfare in New York last week after a long public battle with big five publisher Simon & Schuster, which dropped the book after initially signing Yiannopoulos in a six-figure deal. Yiannopoulos's representatives have yet to respond to a request for comment.
