Former President Barack Obama’s memoir sold more than 887,000 copies on Tuesday, a sizzling debut that publisher Penguin Random House said marked the largest first-day sales for any book it had ever published.
The sales included all formats and editions in the U.S. and Canada, as well as preorders.
“A Promised Land,” the first volume of Mr. Obama’s account of his career and years in the White House, slightly outpaced the opening-day sales of the memoir penned by his wife, former first lady Michelle Obama.
Her book, “Becoming,” sold more than 725,000 copies its first day of publication in 2018 and has now logged total sales of more than 14 million copies world-wide in all formats.
Penguin Random House’s parent, German media company Bertelsmann SE, paid an estimated $60 million for the global publishing rights to the books by Mr. and Mrs. Obama. Mr. Obama’s book ranks No. 1 on the bestseller lists of both Amazon and BarnesandNoble.com.
