Books
Only one book has sold more copies in its first week than Taylor Swift’s “Eras Tour Book”
After breaking records in the music world, Swift is doing the same in the book industry. Although not everyone is impressed.
Everywhere you look, Taylor Swift is never far away. Whether it’s being the most streamed artist on Spotify Wrapped, the centrepiece of people’s Christmas decorations or having the highest-grossing concert tour of all time. Now, the 34-year-old is (almost) breaking records in the book industry.
Swift set to surpass Barack Obama
According to Circana BookScan, generally viewed as the most reliable tracker of weekly physical book sales, Swift’s “Eras Tour Book” sold 814,000 copies in just two days after going on sale on Black Friday (November 28). As far as nonfiction books go, that means only Barack Obama’s “A Promised Land” has ever sold more in its first week.
However, it’s not quite as straightforward as that, for a couple of reasons. Both of which work in Swift’s favour.
Firstly, BookScan’s reporting weeks run from Monday to Sunday, with those “Eras Tour Book” numbers only including two days of sales, as mentioned. Obama’s book was published on a Tuesday in November 2020, so its figures are for a longer tracking week.
Secondly, Swift’s publication has only been available from one retailer, Target, so far, whereas Obama’s was available from all traditional retailers. Stay tuned, then, for seriously record-breaking numbers from a full week of “Eras Tour Book” sales in the coming days.
“Eras Tour Book” criticism
Despite the book’s huge success, though, not everyone has been complimentary. Fans have pointed out it is littered with typos, low-quality images and design mistakes, with one Reddit user highlighting 10 mistakes in song titles in a section dedicated to the Eras Tour’s surprise songs alone.
Is that likely to stop copies flying off the shelves? We all probably know the answer to that already, don’t we?
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