Print Units Were Down 3% at End of July

Unit sales of print books fell 3% in the week ended July 27, 2019, compared to the similar week in 2018, at outlets that report to NPD BookScan. All categories had declines in the week, although unit sales in adult fiction were just about flat—down 0.1%. One Good Deed by David Baldacci landed at #1 on the category list in its first week, selling more than 46,000 copies. A new Star Wars book, Thrawn: Treason by Timothy Zahn, placed at #5 on the adult fiction list, with more than 19,000 copies sold. Adult nonfiction print units declined 3%. Educated by Tara Westover was in the top spot on the category list, selling nearly 21,000 copies, followed by Scribner’s edition of the Mueller Report, which moved up from #14, helped by Robert Mueller’s appearance before two congressional committees in the week. The book sold more than 11,000 copies in the week. In the week ended July 28, 2018, Gregg Jarrett’s The Russia Hoax topped the adult nonfiction list, selling more than 72,000 copies. Despite facing easy comparisons to last year at this time, when the top seller in the juvenile fiction category was Pre-K Jumbo Workbook, which sold about 10,000 copies, print unit sales in the segment fell 5.8% in the most recent week. The top seller was We Don’t Eat Our Classmates by Ryan Higgins, which sold more than 15,000 copies. (Pre-K Jumbo Workbook was #3, selling nearly 11,000 copies.) Unit sales of juvenile nonfiction dipped 1.7% compared to 2018. The big winner in the category last week was Big Preschool (ages 3–5), which sold more than 17,000 copies.

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