Copies of the book “Fire and Fury” by author Michael Wolff. Image: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images/AFP
NEW YORK (AP) — Michael Wolff’s “Fire and Fury” sold more than 29,000 hardcover copies in its first week of publication, NPD BookScan told The Associated Press.
That number, announced Wednesday and the highest overall for books last week, is likely to grow far higher in future reports. Wolff’s explosive tell-all about the Trump administration only came out last Friday and BookScan’s weekly sales run through Saturday.
“The first couple of days of sales figures aren’t giving us the full picture,” said Kristen McLean, the NPD Group’s book industry analyst. “Because of potential distribution issues related to the early release coupled with high demand, it may take a few weeks to see exactly where this book will land in comparison to other political bestsellers of the last few years.”
McLean noted that Hillary Clinton’s “What Happened,” which came out last September, averaged sales of more than 30,000 copies per day in its opening week. But that book “was hugely anticipated and very well stocked,” she said.
“Fire and Fury” seemed to catch everyone off guard, from the Trump administration to publisher Henry Holt and Company, which has raised an initial announced printing of 150,000 to more than 1 million. Since reports of the book’s contents emerged a week ago, retailers have struggled to keep up, with Amazon.com warning of delays of two to four weeks for delivery. BookScan, which tracks about 85 percent of the retail market, only counts an order as a sale once the book has been shipped.
The BookScan numbers also don’t include e-books. According to John Sargent, CEO of Holt parent company MacMillan, digital sales already top 250,000 copies, an extraordinary number for a nonfiction release and likely boosted by the scarcity of the hardcover edition. Audio sales exceed 100,000.
“Fire and Fury” was supposed to come out Tuesday but Holt moved up the release in response to popular demand and to threats of legal action by Trump, who has denounced the book as fiction. An attorney for the president last week sent a cease-and-desist letter to Holt, asking for publication to be withheld. Sargent has issued a company memo defending the decision to publish “Fire and Fury” and a Macmillan attorney on Tuesday said the publisher planned no retraction or apology. NVG
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