LTS 2004's #2 Bestselling Music Memoir

We got a fantastic update today from the Clackhouse's Goood Baby Brush about sales of Clay's book, Learning to Sing, Hearing the Music In Your Life. The paperback version hits selves November 29.

LTS Update

Got some interesting numbers and info from LPB today.

Bookscan has released it lists of bestselling titles for 2004. Clay was #2 in his category (Biographies: Music).

To date, Clay has sold 91,575 books in sales recorded via Booksales.

Just for those keeping score at home (although it's long since reached the sad stage), Simon and Randy have sold 36,736 and 4,674 to date, respectively.

We also have the first sales numbers in for Fantasia's biography, released on 9/30.

Most books go on sale on Tuesdays; Fantasia went on sale on Thursday, so her numbers can't be considered a full week of sales. Regardless, her first week bookscan sales for LIFE IS NOT A FAIRY TALE were 1,574.

For perspective we can compare these numbers to two other Music bios out right now, Wynona Judd and 50 Cent. This is Winona's first week of sales as well. She sold 8,232 and will be #10 on the NYT List. Of course, she also had an appearance on Oprah 10/25. 50 Cent sold 5,741 his first week, just over 4,000 his 2nd week.

These numbers really underscore just how well Clay's bio did last year. His first week sales were 21,146; 2nd week were 9k+ and 3rd week 8,483.

I actually think those of us who pushed so hard for first week sales for him can take a little bit of ownership of how well it did. The internet fandom may be too small to really effect CD sales or even ticket sales, but we are definitely large enough to have an impact on book sales. Everyone who begged, pleaded, lectured, reminded, cajoled, harrangued, etc. for the importance of first week sales (and you know who you are) had a hand in those 21,146 sales. The 21,000 in sales put him at #2 on NYT and at the top of all the major bookseller lists, enough to get him great in-store visibility (and great sales) for the next few weeks.

So, is it too early to talk about the paperback rollover going on sale November 29, 2005? *g*