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'Fire and Fury' burns up bestseller lists

 
Copies of the book "Fire and Fury" by author Michael Wolff are available by advanced order only at Politics and Prose on Monday, January 8, 2018 in Washington, D.C. (Olivier Douliery/Abaca Press/TNS)
Copies of the book "Fire and Fury" by author Michael Wolff are available by advanced order only at Politics and Prose on Monday, January 8, 2018 in Washington, D.C. (Olivier Douliery/Abaca Press/TNS)
Published Jan. 16, 2018

When author Michael Wolff was interviewed on the Today show about his book Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House, Savannah Guthrie asked him how he felt about President Donald Trump's attacks on it. Wolff responded, "Where do I send the box of chocolates?"

Neither Trump's insults nor questions about some of Wolff's methods seem to have slowed down the book's sizzling sales.

When Trump's lawyers tried to block publication of the book on Jan. 4, publisher Henry Holt moved its publication date from Jan. 9 to Jan. 5 — even though many of the 150,000 copies from its first printing were still in transit to bookstores.

RELATED: Politifact fact-checks Michael Wolff's 'Fire and Fury'

Despite limited availability, Fire and Fury sold 28,567 print copies in its first two days, according to NPD Bookscan, making it the bestselling print book that week.

According to a news release from Holt CEO and publisher Steven Rubin, the book has had 11 printings in its first week, with 700,000 copies shipped. Holt has received more than 1.4 million orders for the book.

In the week after its release, the e-book version of Fire and Fury outsold the print version at Barnes & Noble online and topped the Amazon Kindle and iBooks bestseller lists. The audiobook version was No. 1 on Amazon's Audible bestseller list.

John Sargent, CEO of Holt parent company Macmillan, said that more than 250,000 e-books and 100,000 audiobooks had sold in the first week.

There has also been overwhelming demand for the book at libraries across the United States. Publishers Weekly reported that libraries in New York, Chicago, San Diego and other cities had wait lists in the hundreds. Many libraries were still waiting for their copies to arrive. Because the book was embargoed and had little advance publicity, many libraries ordered few or no copies.

On Tuesday, according to the website for the Pinellas County Library Co-operative, the Largo Library had one copy of the book and 95 people on the wait list; East Lake Community Library had 14 copies and 370 holds. The Hillsborough County Libraries website listed 343 holds — and zero copies.

Contact Colette Bancroft at cbancroft@tampabay.com or (727) 893-8435. Follow @colettemb.