Black Friday boosts US book sales

Book sales in the US jumped 23% week on week in the seven days ending 30th November as 15.8 million print books registered through Nielsen BookScan. It follows two consecutive weeks of volume growth above 5%.

The overall top 10 was dominated by titles associated with various Disney films and other properties courtesy of successful Black Friday retailer campaigns, which saw prices for many of the promoted children's titles slashed to half price. Six Disney Press titles claimed six spots inside the Top 10 and nine in the Top 20 overall. Titles such as Princess Bedtime Stories, Disney Bedtime Favorites and Disney Junior Storybook, all in the Top 5, went from selling an average 322 copies to over 110,000 each week on week. The weekly volume of the Top 10 combined lifted by 53% to 961,788-almost a third of the top 100's overall volume.

Substantial price reductions were not enough to shift Jeff Kinney's The Long Haul (Amulet) from the summit. The ninth Wimpy Kid adventure has now spent one month at the top and sold 921,742 units in four weeks with 221,814 sold last week (up 41% week on week). Sales are down on last year's Hard Luck, however. Published in the same week in 2013 (week ending 10th November) first week sales were down 17% to 318,828 and after four weeks on sale, volume is down by 16% year on year with 921,742 recorded copies sold. At this point last year, Hard Luck had already crossed the 1 million copy barrier. Based on its rate of sale however, The Long Haul should cross that milestone this week.

Kinney's success crowns a fantastic year for children's books, which have thoroughly dominated the top end of the US book charts. Seven titles  -Veronica Roth's Divergent and Four, Dr. Seuss' Green Eggs and Ham, John Green's The Fault in Our Stars, Gayle Foreman's If I Stay, Rick Riodan's The Blood of Olympus and Kinney's The Long Haul have claimed 35 weeks at the top so far this year with Divergent claiming 13 weeks alone. Last week sales across juvenile categories rose 49%, registering volume sales in excess of 7.6 million copies.

Two further spots in the Top 10 were taken up by children's books. Climbing four places to number seven, Elf on the Shelf (CCA & B) jumped 150% and sold just over 65,000 and in ninth, Rachel Renee Russell's eighth Dork Diary, Tales from a Not-So-Happily Ever After (Aladdin), climbed 46 places to take ninth place with 63,413 copies. The latest adventure for Nikki Maxwell has sold 221,578 since publication in September.

James Patterson's latest, Hope to Die (Little, Brown), was the only adult title entrant in the Top 10. The 22nd Alex Cross thriller sold 63,292 in its debut week, down by 5% on last year's Cross My Heart's first week sales. That instalment went on to sell 332,000 in hardcover.

For the first time since publication at the start of September, political commentator Bill O'Reilly's Killing Patton (Henry Holt), the fourth in his series examining the deaths of prominent historical figures, slips out of the overall Top 10 (to number 11) despite sales increasing week on week by 35%. The account of the circumstances surrounding General George S Patton's death sold an additional 62,611 copies taking its overall hardcover sales to 747,798 copies. Each of the previous entries in the series covering the deaths of President Lincoln, President Kennedy and Jesus Christ have sold in excess of 1.2 million copies a piece.

Many former Top 10 entrants tumbled last week however. After two weeks, 41: A Portrait of My Father (Crown), George W Bush's  intimate account of his father's life and presidenc,y slipped to number 15 with a 24% volume drop week to week selling 52,764 copies. David Baldacci's The Escape (Grand Central) declined by 26%, selling 37,457 copies, down 15 places to number 20, and Sylvia Day's Captivated by You (Berkley) tumbled 28 places to number 32 with a 60% drop, selling 26,512 copies. Last year's Entwined With You saw a 69% drop in its second week on sale but volumes were much higher; by its second week Entwined… had sold 176,266 copies in contrast to Captivated by You's 92,157 fortnightly total. Stephen King's Revival (Scribner) also slipped out of the Top 20 to number 25.

Nevertheless Fiction volumes were extremely healthy. John Grisham's Gray Mountain (Doubleday) rose two places to number two on the Fiction list with a 5% volume increase selling 41,310 copies. Increases of various editions of Gillian Flynn's Gone Girl (Broadway), George RR Martin's The World of Ice and Fire (Bantam, 14,917 copies) and Jodi Picoult's Leaving Time (Ballantine, 14,523 copies) among others powered an 8% volume increase week on week with 2.6m book sales recorded.

Non-fiction volumes grew by 3% to 7.6 million. Despite declines for Bush and Ina Garten's Make It Ahead (Clarkson Potter), sales were bolstered by among others, Sarah Young's Jesus Calling (Thomas Nelson), which rose seven places to number four shifting an additional 36,950 copies and enjoying its 204th week on the chart. To date it has sold 2.7 million copies in the US since 2004. Historical narratives have proven particularly popular recently. In addition to Killing Patton at the top of the Non-fiction list, Glenn Beck's Dreamers & Deceivers: True Stories of Heroes and Villains Who Made America (Threshold) dropped one place to number 10 but increased in sales week on week to 13,710 copies. Two editions of Laura Hillenbrand's Unbroken: A World War II Story occupy ninth and eighth spots respectively selling just over 39,000 copies combined.