Juvenile Segments Drive 6% Unit Gain at the End of August

Unit sales of print books in the week ended Sept. 2, 2018, rose 6% over the comparable week in 2017 at outlets that report to NPD BookScan. (The weekly sales figures are slightly skewed upward since an online retailer that had been unable to provide data for the previous two weeks resolved the issue, and NPD combined all three weeks of its sales in the week ended Sept. 2, 2018.) The juvenile fiction category had the best performance in the week, with units up 11%, led by Dav Pilkey’s Dog Man: Lord of the Fleas, which sold almost 136,000 copies. Three other new releases also had solid sales in their first weeks: Kristy’s Big Day by Ann M. Martin sold more than 16,000 copies, The Bad Guys in Do-You-Think-He-Saurus by Aaron Blabey sold more than 14,000 copies, and Eva’s Big Sleepover by Rebecca Elliott sold more than 10,000 copies. Juvenile nonfiction sales rose 8% over the week ended Sept. 3, 2017. There was little change among the top 10 bestsellers in the category, where back-to-school titles continued to dominate. Print unit sales in the adult nonfiction category increased 6% over 2017, as Girl, Wash Your Face by Rachel Hollis remained #1 in the category, selling more than 61,000 copies. The Restless Wave by John McCain landed in second place in the category in its first week, selling nearly 19,000 copies. A number of novels by Kevin Kwan continued to sell well in adult fiction, with Crazy Rich Asians and China Rich Girlfriend running one-two on the segment list, selling more than 40,000 and 21,000 copies, respectively.

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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