Doubleday announced Tuesday that hardcover, audio and e-book sales for The Lost Symbol topped 2 million copies for its first week of release in the United States, Britain and Canada. The total is "well over" 2 million for English-language editions worldwide, according to Doubleday spokeswoman Suzanne Herz, who declined to offer a specific number.
Doubleday announced Tuesday that hardcover, audio and e-book sales for The Lost Symbol topped 2 million copies for its first week of release in the United States, Britain and Canada. The total is "well over" 2 million for English-language editions worldwide, according to Doubleday spokeswoman Suzanne Herz, who declined to offer a specific number.
Herz did say that around 5%, or 100,000 copies, of The Lost Symbol were sold as e-books. Doubleday released the digital edition at the same time as the hardcover despite industry worries that e-sales might take away business from the more expensive paper text.
Amazon.com reported last week that first-day sales for The Lost Symbol were higher on its Kindle e-reader than in hard cover. E-books, a fast-growing portion of an otherwise slow market, have been estimated at anywhere between 1% to 5% of total sales.
The results are an all-time high for Random House, Inc. The Lost Symbol has now outsold Bill Clinton's memoir which was released in 2004. Of course, nothing compares to Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, which sold a whopping 8 million copies.
