Obama memoir sells a record 1.7m copies in first week

Barack Obama's A Promised Land has sold 1.7 million copies in the USA and Canada during its first week of publication, the largest week-one sales total for any book ever published by Penguin Random House, according to the publishers.

A Promised Land, the first of two planned volumes, was published on November 17 and sold almost 890,000 copies just on its first day.

Executive director of business development at NPD BookScan Kristen McLean said 2020 was likely to be the "biggest year for political books since we began tracking USA book sales in 2004".

"We are thrilled with the first day sales", said David Drake, publisher of the Penguin Random House imprint Crown. "They reflect the widespread excitement that readers have for President Obama's highly anticipated and extraordinarily written book".

According to Deadline, the first week sales for Obama's latest memoir surpassed the first week sales of George W. Bush and Bill Clinton memoirs.

Crown said Tuesday that it had increased its initial print run by 900,000 and that the book is now on track to be the bestselling presidential memoir in modern history. Both memoirs have now sold between 3.5 million and 4 million copies in total. Among former White House residents, only Obama's wife Michelle approaches his popularity as a writer. Without releasing a paperback edition, "Becoming" has since sold over 10 million copies. Her Becoming, published in 2018, has sold more than 10 million copies worldwide and is now in the top 20 on Amazon.com.

Obama has also penned two other bestselling memoirs titled "The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream" and "Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance".

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A Promised Land explores Barack Obama's early political life and presidency.