NEW YORK — Just one retail chain was enough for Taylor Swift to have the top-selling book last week and the biggest publishing launch of 2024.
According to Circana, Swift’s “Eras Tour Book” sold 814,000 copies over the Thanksgiving holiday weekend. Circana tracks around 85% of the print market, but the “Eras” numbers are more precise: Swift sold the book exclusively through Target, which launched the “Eras” tie-in on Black Friday.
Sales soared even as Swift skipped Amazon.com and other retailers and as some fans complained online that the $39.99 book included typos and other errors. Representatives for Target and Swift did not immediately respond to requests Wednesday for comment.
The sales put Swift in rare company. The only bigger nonfiction launch was the first volume of Barack Obama’s presidential memoirs, “A Promised Land,” which sold 816,000 copies its first week on shelves in 2020, according to Circana, which does not include audio and e-book sales. But Obama’s memoir was available through all major outlets and Circana’s tracking for “Eras Tour Book” accounts only for its first weekend sales.
Swift has arranged exclusive, non-traditional releases before. For her “Eras” concert film, which came out in 2023, she bypassed Hollywood studios and worked directly with AMC Theatres and Cinemark Theatres. “Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour” has made more than $200 million at the box office and stands as the highest grossing concert movie in history.
Even before the “Eras” book, Swift has been a mini-genre in the publishing industry, the inspiration for biographies, romance fiction, fashion, coloring books and a cocktail recipe collection, “Shake It Up.” Another top seller of 2024, according to Circana, is Wendy Loggia’s “Taylor Swift: A Little Golden Book Biography,” designed in the tradition of such Little Golden favorites as “The Three Bears” and “The Whispering Rabbit.”
