Juvenile Categories Drive 5% Unit Gain in Early March

Unit sales of print books in the week ended Mar. 4, 2018, were 5% higher than in the comparable week in 2017 at outlets that report to NPD BookScan. Like the previous week, the juvenile categories led the sales increase. Juvenile nonfiction had a 12% sales gain over the week ended Mar. 5, 2017. Five books by Tish Rabe were among the top 15 bestsellers in the category, including the #1 title, There’s No Place like Space, which sold more than 21,000 copies. Her other four top-selling titles sold a total of about 24,000 copies. Bonnie Worth’s Oh Say Can You Say Di-no-saur and Hark! A Shark! were in the second and third places, respectively, on the category list, combining to sell more than 27,000 copies. Strong sales by numerous Dr. Seuss titles helped boost unit gains in the juvenile fiction category by 9%. Green Eggs and Ham and One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish ran one-two on the category list, selling nearly 58,000 and more than 44,000 copies, respectively. Five other Seuss titles in the top 10 sold a total of approximately 120,000 copies. Print unit sales in the adult nonfiction category were up 4%. Two new books led the way: Mark Hyman’s Food: What the Heck Should I Eat? was #1 on the category list, selling more than 38,000 copies, while I’ve Been Thinking by Maria Shriver was in second place, selling nearly 33,000 copies. Kristin Hannah’s The Great Alone, which sold more than 19,000 copies, remained #1 on the adult fiction list as units in the category fell 2%. The top-selling new title was David Baldacci’s mass market paperback The Fix, which sold more than 15,000 copies and was in third place on the category list.

Unit Sales of Print Books by Channel (in thousands)

Unit Sales of Print Books by category (in thousands)

Unit Sales of Print Books by format (in thousands)