Board Books Have Big Week

A spike in sales of board books helped to drive up unit sales of print books 5% in the week ended July 16, 2017 over the comparable week in 2016 at outlets that report to NPD BookScan. Sales of board books were 25% higher than in the week ended July 17, 2016. Juvenile nonfiction titles benefited from the surge: unit sales in that category were 14% higher than in the comparable week in 2016. There were no new big hits in the category, but many of the top sellers had solid increases from the previous week. Brain Quest titles occupied five of the top 10 category bestseller list slots, selling more than 30,000 copies total. Flashcards were also big sellers. In the juvenile fiction category, unit sales were 10% higher than a year ago. The segment benefited from the release of The Land of Stories: Worlds Collide by Chris Colfer, which sold more than 35,000 copies, making it #1 in the juvenile fiction segment. A second new release that landed in the top 10 (at #7) on the category bestseller list was What if Everybody Did That? by Ellen Javernick, which sold more than 7,000 copies. The adult nonfiction segment saw a 5% increase in unit sales over the similar week in 2016, helped by The Instant Pot Pressure Cooker Cookbook by Laurel Randolph (#2 in the category bestseller list), which sold more than 16,000 copies. The top title remained Milk and Honey by Rupi Kaur, with more than 21,000 copies sold in the week. Unit sales in the adult fiction category fell 2% Just as in the comparable week last year, Daniel Silva had the top seller in the category: this year it was House of Spies, which sold more than 46,000 copies; last year it was The Black Widow, with more than 51,000 copies.

Unit Sales of Print Books by Channel

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Unit Sales of Print Books by Category

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Unit Sales of Print Books by Format

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