The Weekly Scorecard: Tracking Unit Print Sales for Week Ending July 19, 2015

Unit sales of print books jumped 13% in the week ended July 19, 2015, compared to the similar week last year, at outlets that report to Nielsen BookScan. The gain was due to the release of Harper Lee’s Go Set a Watchman, which sold more than 746,000 copies in its first week. The performance of Watchman drove up sales in the adult fiction category by 30%. The publication of Lee’s book was also the main reason for the 33% increase in hardcover unit sales in the week. Watchman knocked Grey off the top spot on the adult fiction bestseller list, but E.L. James’s novel sold more than 87,000 copies last week, providing another boost to the segment. The adult nonfiction category had a strong debut of its own: Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates sold almost 25,000 copies in its first week, putting it fewer than 40 units behind The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo, the top seller in the category. The juvenile nonfiction segment had a solid week, with units up 21% over week 29 of 2014. Johanna Basford was #1, this time with Enchanted Forest, which sold almost 14,000 copies. Her Secret Garden, which topped the chart last week, dropped to third place, with more than 11,000 copies sold. Workman had seven Brain Quest titles in the top 25 in the week; together they sold about 40,000 copies. Units fell 1% in juvenile fiction. The biggest debut in the week was Disney’s Descendants, which came in #7 of the list, with almost 9,900 copies sold.

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.