The Weekly Scorecard: Tracking Unit Print Sales for Week Ending January 25, 2015

Unit sales of print books rose 6% in the week ended Jan. 25, 2015, compared to the similar week in 2014, at outlets that report to Nielsen BookScan. The retail & club channel had another good week, with sales up 7%, and the mass merchandisers channel posted its first weekly unit increase in 2015, with sales up 1%. The adult nonfiction segment had a solid 8% increase over the week ended Jan. 26, 2014, led by strong sales of American Sniper. Various editions of the book, by Chris Kyle, took the top three places on the nonfiction list and sold a total of about 138,000 copies in the week (see Bestsellers, p. 11). The adult fiction segment also had a good week, with units up 5% over week four of 2014. Unit sales of The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins rose 9% in the week ended Jan. 25, 2015, and the title took the top spot in fiction, selling more than 24,000 copies. The 9% increase in unit sales in week four in the juvenile nonfiction segment was driven by continued strong demand for Minecraft books, which held five of the top 10 bestseller slots in the segment. Units in the juvenile fiction category rose 4% in the week, helped by the trade paperback release of Insurgent. The film, which is based on the second volume in Veronica Roth’s hugely popular Divergent series, will be released March 20.

Unit Sales of Print Books by Channel

Unit Sales of Print Books by Category

Unit Sales of Print Books by Format

Source: Nielsen BookScan and Publishers Weekly. Nielsen BookScan’s U.S. Consumer Market Panel covers approximately 80% of the print book market and continues to grow.