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difficult comparisons to 2018, which had a strong early
list led by The President Is Missing. Digital audiobook
sales at HBG had a “solid advance” in the first six months,
Lagardère noted. HBG CEO Michael Pietsch pointed out
that while sales were down, profits rose at HBG, driven
by a number of new bestsellers, including the first #
bestseller for Elin Hilderbrand, The Summer of ’69. Back-
list sales were led by You Are a Badass by Jen Sincero.
While a licensing deal signed last year contributed to
a revenue decline at HC in the first six month of 2019,
just the opposite happened at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Books & Media. Sales in the group rose $7.1 million (9.7%)
over the first half of 2018, primarily from $7.7 million of
licensing revenue driven by the Carmen Sandiego series
on Netflix. Print sales were down in the period, due to
strong sales last year of the Instant Pot and Whole 30
series. —Jim Milliot
WWW.PUBLISHERSWEEKLY.COM 9The Weekly Scorecard
Print Unit Sales Rose 1.2%
In Late August
Unit sales of print books rose 1.2% in the week ended Aug. 24,
2019, compared to the similar week in 2018, at outlets that report
to NPD BookScan. Three of the four major segments had gains
over the week ended Aug. 25, 2018, led by juvenile fiction, where
units were up 8.7%. The increase in the juvenile fiction category
was driven by Dav Pilkey’s Dog Man: For Whom the Ball Rolls,
which sold nearly 126,000 copies in its second week; its two-week
sales total is more than 368,000 copies. A distant second was We
Don’t Eat Our Classmates by Ryan T. Higgins, which sold nearly
22,000 copies. Getting-ready-for-school titles dominated the
juvenile nonfiction category, where units rose 6.4% over 2018.
Big Preschool was the big winner in the week, with more than
17,000 copies sold. Workman’s Ace series had four titles among
the category’s top 10 bestsellers, led by Everything You Need to
Know to Ace Math in One Big Fat Notebook, which sold just under
9,000 copies. Print unit sales increased 4.4% in the adult fiction
category, where the unstoppable Where the Crawdads Sing was
#1 in the category again, with more than 40,000 copies sold. The
top-selling new title was Old Bones by Doug Preston and Lincoln
Child, which sold over 13,000 copies in its first week. Adult non-
fiction unit sales dropped 4% compared to 2018. Thank You for
My Service by Mat Best was #1 in the category in its first week,
selling over 26,000 copies. Last year at this time, Girl, Wash Your
Face by Rachel Hollis was the top adult nonfiction title, selling
more than 59,000 copies.SOURCE:COVERS APPROXIMATELY NPD BOOKSCAN 80% AND OF PUBLISHERS THE PRINT BOOK WEEKLY. MARKET NPD’S AND U.S. CONSUMER CONTINUES MARKET TO GROW. PANELTOTAL SALES OF PRINT BOOKS (in thousands)
AUG. 25, AUG. 24, CHGE CHGE
2018 2019 WEEK YTD
To t a l 12,969 13,129 1.2% -1.6%AUG. 25, AUG. 24, CHGE CHGE
2018 2019 WEEK YTD
Adult Non ction 5,911 5,675 -4.0% -0.3%
Adult Fiction 2,636 2,751 4.4% -3.8%
Juvenile Nonfiction 1,040 1,107 6.4% 1.8%
Juvenile Fiction 2,671 2,904 8.7% -2.1%
Young Adult Fiction 435 416 -4.3% -2.8%
Young Adult Nonfiction 44 52 16.3% 2.5%UNIT SALES OF PRINT BOOKS BY CATEGORY (in thousands)UNIT SALES OF PRINT BOOKS BY FORMAT (in thousands)
AUG. 25, AUG. 24, CHGE CHGE
2018 2019 WEEK YTD
Hardcover 3,079 3,357 9.1% 3.7%
Trade Paperback 7,893 7,853 -0.5% -2.4%
Mass Market Paperback 1, 012 8 92 -11.8 % -15.5%
Board Books 569 582 2.2% 1.8%
Audio 33 24 -26.8% 25.1%Webtoon Builds
An Audience for
Webcomics
F
ounded in Korea in 2004 by JunKoo Kim, Webtoon
is a digital publishing and self-publishing plat-
form offering webcomics; it launched operations
in the U.S. in 2014. The company offers webcomics to
read for free to an audience that skews young (ages
14–24) and female (about 64%). After years of growing
its user base in the U.S., Webtoon is preparing to launch
a series of nine online graphic adaptations of young
adult prose novels published by a variety of houses.
Among the publishers it is working with are Amazon