The Weekly Scorecard: Tracking Unit Print Sales for Week Ending March 8, 2015

Unit sales of print books dipped 0.4% in the week ended Mar. 8, 2015, compared to the similar week last year, at outlets that report to Nielsen BookScan. The decline was due to softness in the mass merchandiser channel, where units fell 5%. Only a few books made a splash in their first week on sale, and they were all in the adult fiction segment, which saw a 3% rise in unit sales. The mass market paperback edition of J.D. Robb’s Festive in Death sold about 21,000 copies in its first week on sale, putting it at #4 on the adult fiction list. Clive Cussler’s newest hardcover, The Assassin, debuted on the list at #6, with more than 20,000 copies sold, while the mass market edition of his The Bootlegger landed in the 11th spot, selling about 15,500 copies. Unit sales in the juvenile nonfiction segment were up 10% over the week ended Mar. 9, 2014; There is No Place Like Space, by Tish Rabe, led the category for the second week in a row, selling more than 12,000 copies. The lack of strong new titles contributed to small unit sales declines in the adult nonfiction and juvenile fiction segments. The hottest adult nonfiction book in the week was The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up, by Marie Kondo, with more than 21,000 units sold—up 52% over the previous week and good enough for #2 on the adult nonfiction list. The movie tie-in edition of Chris Kyle’s American Sniper held on to the top spot on that list. In juvenile fiction, Random House titles again dominated the list, taking 19 of the top 20 top slots.

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.