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Obama memoir A Promised Land sells a record 1.7 million copies in first week

Obama memoir A Promised Land sells a record 1.7 million copies in first week

This Feb. 19, 2019, file photo shows former President Barack Obama speaking at the My Brother's Keeper Alliance Summit in Oakland, Calif. (Photo: AP/Jeff Chiu, File)

Former US President Barack Obama's A Promised Land sold more than 1.7 million copies in North America in its first week, roughly equal to the combined first week sales of memoirs by his two immediate predecessors and among the highest ever for a nonfiction book.

Crown announced on Tuesday (Nov 24) that it had increased its initial print run from 3.4 million copies to 4.3 million. Sales also include audio and digital books.

A Promised Land, the first of two planned volumes, was published Nov 17 and sold nearly 890,000 copies just in its first day. Among former White House residents, only Obama's wife Michelle approaches his popularity as a writer. Becoming, published in 2018, has sold more than 10 million copies worldwide and is currently in the top 20 on Amazon.com.

George W Bush's Decision Points sold 775,000 copies its first week and Bill Clinton's My Life topped 1 million in eight days. The two presidential memoirs have now each sold between 3.5 and 4 million copies, totals that Obama's book should easily surpass.

No nonfiction comes close to the pace set by JK Rowling's Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows, which in 2007 sold more than 8 million copies in its first 24 hours.

(Source: AP) 

Source: AP/sr

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