The Weekly Scorecard: Tracking Unit Print Sales for Week Ending April 12, 2015

Unit sales of print books dropped 11% in the week ended Apr. 12, 2015, compared to the similar week last year, at outlets that report to Nielsen BookScan. The decline came a week after units rose 15%, year over year, and was driven by very weak sales in the mass merchandisers channel, where units plunged 30%. The steepest segment decline came in the juvenile fiction category, where units dropped 26%. In the week ended Apr. 13, 2014 , the three Divergent titles were on top of the juvenile fiction list and combined to sell about 170,000 copies; in week 15 of 2015, the top three books in the category sold roughly 37,000 copies total (John Green’s Paper Towns led the way, with just over 18,000 copies sold). Moreover, in the week ended Apr. 13, 2014, the 100 bestselling titles sold more than 912,000 copies—a total that fell to 411,000 in the week ended Apr. 12, 2015. Juvenile nonfiction performed only slightly better than juvenile fiction last week, as sales in the latter segment dropped 17%, year over year. Sales of Minecraft titles have slowed noticeably, and the top-selling title in the category was First 100 Words, which sold just over 12,000 copies. Unit sales of the 100 bestselling titles in juvenile nonfiction fell 66% in week 15 of 2015. The adult fiction segment had the week’s best performance, with sales down 2%. The Girl on the Train, by Paula Hawkins, remained at the top seller in the week, with more than 30,000 copies sold.

Unit Sales of Print Books by Channel

Unit Sales of Print Books by Category

Unit Sales of Print Books by Format