Fire and Fury goes straight in at US number one

US sales of Donald Trump exposé Fire and Fury topped 29,000 hardcover copies in its first weekend, according to NBD BookScan figures released on Wednesday (10th January).

Michael Wolff's controversial exposé of Trump's presidency, which published in both the US and UK on Friday 3rd January, racked up sales of 28,567 copies in total after three days of sale for the week ending 7th January, Publishers Weekly reported.

The figure was "surprisingly low" considering all the hype around the book, the trade journal reported, because of distribution issues.

"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 best-sellers of the last few years."

The NBD figures track 85% of the retail market and don't include e-book sales either. Jon Sargent, c.e.o. of Fire and Fury's US publisher Macmillan, told the Washington Post that digital sales were already in excess of 250,000 copies while audio sales have exceeded 100,000. The first print run of the title was 150,000 copies, he added.

Bringing publication forward from 9th January to 5th January was also likely to have impacted on sales, since shipments of the book timed for early next week could still have been on route over the weekend. Amazon.com warned customers of delays between two and four weeks for delivery. 

The top five markets for the book, according to the NBD figures, were New York City (selling 2,554 print copies), San Francisco (1,704 copies), Washington DC (1,637 copies), Los Angeles (1,441 copies) and Chicago (1,005 copies).