Units Rise 1.2% in Mid-June, Led by Gains in Nonfiction

In the week ended June 15, 2019, unit sales of print books rose 1.2% over the comparable week in 2018 at outlets that report to NPD BookScan. Once again, the nonfiction categories drove the increase, with units in juvenile nonfiction up 9.7% over the week ended June 16, 2018, and adult nonfiction units up 4.9%. Seven Summer Bridge’s Activities workbooks published by Carson-Dellosa Publishing were among the juvenile nonfiction category’s top 10 titles, together selling about 53,000 copies. Father’s Day appears to have given a lift to adult nonfiction, as several of the top titles in the category had sales increases over the previous week. Unfreedom of the Press by Mark Levin remained #1 in adult nonfiction, selling more than 34,000 copies—up from 30,000 copies in the previous week. David McCullough’s The Pioneers also jumped, from more than 19,000 copies sold to just under 28,000, landing it in third place on the category list. In second place was a new book by Jon Meacham, Songs of America, which sold more than 30,000 copies in its first week. Sales in the adult fiction segment are still suffering with comparisons to last year; The President Is Missing by James Patterson and Bill Clinton sold more than 122,000 copies in the week ended June 16, 2018. In the week ended June 15, 2019, sales of the top five bestselling adult fiction books together equalled that, resulting in a 6.4% decline in unit sales. The top-selling adult fiction title in the most recent week was still Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens, which sold just over 48,000 copies.

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