Sheryl Sandberg's Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead (Knopf) was the #1 overall bestseller for the week ending March 17, according to Nielsen BookScan. The book sold 74,000 copies at BookScan outlets, more than double the #2 book, David Baldacci's The Innocent. Currently the #1 bestseller on Amazon (a spot it has held onto for most of the last two weeks), Lean In was also the only debut in the top 30 on BookScan. The second-highest debut was Brandon Mull's Chasing the Prophecy, which landed at #32 overall.
According to Knopf spokesperson Paul Bogaards, Lean In has sold 120,000 copies, including about 50,000 e-books. Random has gone back to press for another 25,000 copies, bringing the number of copies in print to 440,000. While the book received tremendous amounts of publicity prior to publication, Bogaards noted that Knopf only had "narrow bands of access" to Sandberg, the COO of Facebook, and as such had to be selective about access to the author. "That's why we went with 60 Minutes and Time as lead tent poles," Bogaards said. The book is receiving lots of attention in social media with a variety of user groups springing up. Some of the data Knopf has seen shows older men buying the book in greater numbers than had been expected, which Bogaards believes means that fathers are buying it for their daughters. Lean In, Bogaards predicted, "will have a huge graduate market in May and June."
Three months into 2013, the bestselling book of the year so far is Proof of Heaven by Eben Alexander, which has sold 319,000 copies, according to outlets that report to BookScan.
