Taylor Swift‘s Eras Tour book is only available from one retailer, Target, but that isn’t keeping it from having a more-than-blockbuster bow. “Taylor Swift | The Eras Tour Book” sold 814,000 copies in just its first two days on sale, according to Circana BookScan, widely regarded as the most reliable tracker of weekly physical book sales.
That is the second-highest amount of books sold in a single reporting week since BookScan began tracking sales in 2001. The only nonfiction book to have surpassed that debut figure during a tracking frame, according to the Associated Press, is Barack Obama’s “A Promised Land,” which sold 816,000 copies — just 2,000 more than Swift’s — when it first went on sale in 2020.
But Obama’s figure was for a longer tracking week, on top of being available through all traditional retailers. Swift’s book went on sale on Black Friday, thus registering only two days of sales before Circana’s week ended on Saturday.
It’s believed that Target and Swift’s reps may be waiting until a full seven days of sales occur before reporting their own figures for sales of the book.
The Wall Street Journal reported last week that Target had ordered 2 million copies of the book, a photo-driven, 256-page hardback that retails for $39.99. The book did not go through a traditional publishing house but is officially listed as a product of Taylor Swift Publications.
Circana BookScan does not track ebook or audiobook sales, but that’s not a factor here, as the Swift book is only available in the hardback edition.
Meanwhile, Swift is also enjoying blockbuster first-week sales of the vinyl and CD editions of “The Tortured Poets Department: The Anthology.” The four-LP and two-CD sets were released concurrently with the book on Black Friday and are also available only through Target.
Official first-week sales numbers for the “Anthology” physical editions won’t be reported until Sunday, when Billboard and Luminate release the results for the sales week that ends Thursday. But Hits Daily Double reports that massive sales of the two deluxe variants at Target will cause “The Tortured Poets Department” to bounce back to No. 1, with what the publication estimates will be a 388,000-unit week.
If the release does come in anywhere near that 388K estimate, it will be the third-best week of the year for “Tortured Poets.” The album debuted with 2.6 million units, then landed 439,000 in week two, registering 282,000 in its third week.
Whatever tally it comes in with, the album would have sold even more if Target stores had been able to keep vinyl copies in stock. Customers lining up in the pre-dawn hours after Thanksgiving quickly cleared out the supply of vinyl at many stores as soon as the doors opened, according to widespread fan reports, though a store-by-store hunt could turn up copies at other locations. Many fans said they were told each of their locations got 90 copies. Copies of the CD edition were more readily available as the weekend progressed, as was the book.
Anyone wanting the vinyl now will have to wait, although not past Christmas. Orders being taken now on the Target website for the four-LP set, which sells for $59.99, say that it will arrive by Dec. 13.
