Early Sales Figures Are in for Wolff's Fire and Fury

Michael Wolff's Fire and Fury sold more than 29,000 hardcover copies in its first week of publication, NBD BookScan tells the AP. That number, announced Wednesday and the highest overall for books last week, is likely to grow far higher in future reports. The explosive tell-all about the Trump administration by Wolff (a co-founder of Newser) 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," says 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."

Fire and Fury has been so in demand that retailers have struggled to keep it in stock, with Amazon.com warning of delays of two to four weeks for delivery. BookScan, which tracks about 85% 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 Macmillan CEO John Sargent, 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.

(More Fire and Fury stories.)