Number of the Day
The Trump-Era Boom in Political Books, by the Numbers
Book readers can’t seem to know enough about Trump
10.5 million: That’s how many copies of political books (in print and e-book formats) have been sold in the U.S. in 2020 through September, according to the Wall Street Journal, based on data from NPD Bookscan, which tracks book sales. That’s compared to just 6.1 million political books sold by this point in 2019, and does not count the 3 million hardcover copies of the first volume of President Obama’s memoir that will hit shelves next month.
It feels like a lifetime since the publication of Michael Wolff’s 2018 presidential blockbuster Fire and Fury (which sold over 4 million copies in its first year), but Americans on both sides of the political aisle seem to have a still-insatiable appetite for books about President Donald Trump. His critics and supporters are more than eager to serve them up: The Journal reported that more than 1,000 titles about Trump were published during the first three years of his term, versus just over 450 titles published about President Obama during the first three years of his presidency.
The pandemic and political turmoil of 2020 have put an unexpected wind in the sails of the book publishing industry. Unit sales of print books…
