News
WWW.PUBLISHERSWEEKLY.COM 5The Weekly Scorecard
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 non-
fiction 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 cate-
gory 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.ERS APPROXIMSOURCE: NPD BOOKSCAN AND ATELY 80% OF THE PRINT BOOK MPUBLISHERS WEEKLY. NPD’S U.S. CONSUMARKET AND CONTINUES TO GROWER MARKET PANEL COV-.TOTAL SALES OF PRINT BOOKS (in thousands)
JUL. 28 , JUL. 27 , CHGE CHGE
2018 2019 WEEK YTD
Total 1 1, 938 1 1,57 9 -3.0% -2.1%JUL. 28 , JUL. 27 , CHGE CHGE
2018 2019 WEEK YTD
Adult Nonfiction 4, 971 4, 824 -3.0% -0.6%
Adult Fiction 2 , 695 2, 693 -0.1% -4.5%
Juvenile Nonfiction 1 , 077 1 , 059 -1.7% 2 .8%
Juvenile Fiction 2 ,5 27 2 , 382 -5.8% -3.3%
Young AdultFiction 406 381 - 6. 1 -2.3%
Young AdultNonfiction 48 45 -3.8% 0.8%UNIT SALES OF PRINT BOOKS BY CATEGORY (in thousands)UNIT SALES OF PRINT BOOKS BY FORMAT (in thousands)
JUL. 28 , JUL. 27 , CHGE CHGE
2018 2019 WEEK YTD
Hardcover 2 , 935 2 , 950 0.5% 2.6%
Trade Paperback 7, 083 6,8 77 -2.9% -3.0%
Mass Markett Paperback 1, 000 85 4-14.6%-15.7%
Board Books 543 514 -5.4% 1.7%
Audio 37 29 -21.4%-25.9%service B&T did. “For a small store like mine, Baker &
Taylor was set up in way to that helped us better serve
our customers,” she noted. Kissner relied on B&T’s next-
day delivery, without extra charges, as a way to compete
with Amazon.
Everson said that Ingram is looking for ways to enhancedelivery time, especially during the holidays, when quick
delivery can make the difference between a sale and a
lost sale. Kallman said that Bookazine is also looking
for ways to speed up delivery to the coast.
When B&T operated a Reno warehouse, it developeda Rapid Replenishment program in partnership with
HarperCollins, Penguin Random House, and Simon &
Schuster. Everson said that Ingram is talking with pub-
lishers about replicating the program, and that he
expects to announce some deals for the fourth quarter.
A number of booksellers said that though they gener-ally like working with Ingram, they remain concerned
that the company is the only major wholesaler. Booka-
zine’s Kallman said that fear is one reason he expects to
continue to sign more accounts. “Every bookstore needs
to have at least two players in their cascade,” he added.
Shortly after B&T’s May announcement, many pub-lisher and distributors announced special terms to
encourage stores that had been using B&T to order from
them directly. Most booksellers PW interviewed—even
those that hadn’t been using B&T—said that they have
been doing more direct ordering with publishers lately.
But ordering directly has its own challenges.
Andrea Vuleta, executive director of the SouthernCalifornia Independent Booksellers Association, said
that to order directly from publishers, “we will have to
roll back to 10- and 14-day lead times.” She added, “We
will be addressing that timeline management specifi-
cally at the regional trade show this year.”
It is not only West Coast booksellers who are worriedabout the time that publishers take to fill orders. Nina
Barrett of Bookends and Beginnings in Evanston, Ill.,
said that it could take publishers anywhere from two
to seven business days to fulfill a special order. “That
sounds incredibly lame to a customer who knows they
can go online and get that book maybe the same day,
or at latest in a day or two,” she said. “Unless we solve
the problem of how to get individual books quickly to
customers who ask for them—which is what, for the most
part, wholesalers allow us to do—we really are not on a
level playing field with the online juggernaut.”
—Jim Milliot, with reporting by Claire Kirch