Archive for October 12th, 2009:

Author Dan Brown’s The Lost Symbol, the sequel to The Da Vinci Code, was released in September 2009 with much fanfare and high hopes for soaring sales. It delivered . . . for a while. The Lost Symbol sold almost two million copies during its first week of release, smashing sales records. But since then sales have declined quite a bit. Nielsen BookScan, which tallies book sales in the United States, reported that sales of The Lost Symbol fell from 401,000 copies the last week of September to 214,000 the first week of October, a decline of 47 percent.

Other titles suffered from declining or underwhelming sales as well, including anticipated works by such successful authors as Pat Conroy, Mitch Albom, Edward Kennedy, and Audrey Niffenegger, whose first book, Time Traveler’s Wife, was a best seller. Some suspect readers are waiting for paperback versions to come out rather than spend their cash on the more costly hardback editions. Others suggest, and hope, sales will perk up during the holidays as people purchase fall books as gifts.

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