Huckabee Lands at #3

Many observers expect ordained Southern Baptist minister and former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, a prolific author with a dozen books to his credit, to make a second run for the presidency next year. Huckabee says he won’t decide either way until spring; in the meantime, his newest title, God, Guns, Grits, and Gravy, debuts on our Hardcover Nonfiction list this week at #3, with more than 14K copies sold. Here, we chart debut-week sales of his five most recent books and highlight a few political-career milestones.

'Down' Is Up

Héctor Tobar’s critically acclaimed Deep Down Dark, the story of the 33 men who spent 69 days trapped in a Chilean mine, was published Oct. 7, 2014, and saw modest sales its first couple of months out; as of December 7, per Nielsen BookScan, it had sold 3,787 copies. On December 11, NPR announced that the book was Ann Patchett’s pick for the inaugural Morning Edition book club, and for the week ending December 14, BookScan showed sales of 6,328 units, meaning that more than 62% of cumulative sales were due to that one week. Weekly sales peaked just before the holidays, then dropped off, but they received another boost this week, when Tobar was interviewed on NPR and answered listeners’ questions.

Gunning for the Top

American Sniper nails the top three spots on the print bestseller list this week. The trade paperback tie-in, the mass market tie-in, and the traditional mass market paperback sold some 138K copies combined. Sniper also nabs two places in the biography/autobiography bestseller category of Apple’s iBooks store (see here). An enhanced edition of the title is Apple’s top seller, followed by the regular edition.

Top 10 Overall

Rank Title Author Imprint Units
1 American Sniper (trade paper movie tie-in) Chris Kyle Morrow 78,859
2 American Sniper (mass market movie tie-in) Chris Kyle Harper 33,386
3 American Sniper Chris Kyle HarperTorch 26,036
4 The Girl on the Train Paula Hawkins Riverhead 24,456
5 The Long Haul Jeff Kinney Abrams/Amulet 21,606
6 All the Light We Cannot See Anthony Doerr Scribner 20,632
7 Unbroken Laura Hillenbrand Random 20,189
8 Unbroken (movie tie-in) Laura Hillenbrand Random 19,343
9 Zero Belly Diet David Zinczenko Ballantine 18,441
10 The 20/20 Diet Phil McGraw Bird Street 14,850