Hillary Clinton’s “What Happened” – a book revealing the back scenes of everything that ensued in her 2016 presidential election loss has sold more than 300,000 copies in the combined formats of hardcover, e-book and audio.
According to NPD BookScan which tracks around 85 percent of retail print sales, the book’s hardcover sales of 168,000 were the highest opening for any nonfiction release in five years, following Mark Owen’s “No Easy Day,” a 2012 memoir about the killing of Osama bin Laden which sold more than 250,000 copies in its first week.
Sales for “What Happened” surpassed Clinton’s previous book ‘Hard Choices”, a memoir about her years as Secretary of State which was released in 2014 and sold over 100,000 copies in its first week
“What Happened” is also near the top of the Amazon.com best-seller list since its publication on Sept. 12 despite the early flurries of criticisms and negative reader reviews which greeted the book upon its release.
Simon & Schuster CEO Carolyn Reidy said in a statement, “The remarkable response to ‘What Happened’ indicates that, notwithstanding all that has been written and discussed over the last year, there is clearly an overwhelming desire among readers to learn about and experience, from Hillary Clinton’s singular perspective, the historic events of the 2016 election. In its candour and immediacy, ‘What Happened’ is satisfying that demand.”
One of Clinton’s work which far exceeds the early popularity of “What Happened” and is her all time opening is “Living History,” a 2003 memoir of her years as first lady which included her first extended comments on the affair between her husband, President Bill Clinton, and White House intern Monica Lewinsky. The memoir sold more than 600,000 copies in its first week.
In addition, Simon & Schuster said the book set a company record for weekly digital audio sales and sold more e-book editions in a week than any nonfiction release from the publisher since Walter Isaacson’s biography of Steve Jobs in
In view of its sustained exploits, “What Happened” will by Oct 1 debut at No. 1 on The New York Times’ best-seller lists for hardcover and for combined e-book and hardcover.
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