Ronan Farrow's 'Catch and Kill' sells well, but is topped by a legal eagle & rock 'n' roll tales
Ronan Farrow’s recently-released nonfiction exposé “Catch and Kill: Lies, Spies and a Conspiracy to Protect Predators” sold 44,000 print copies in the U.S. in its first week following its Oct. 15 release, according to NPD BookScan, but was still outsold by the likes of legal mystery maven John Grisham and rock 'n' roll legend Elton John.
The investigative journalist’s book, which he describes as "the story behind the story," details Farrow's investigations into disgraced Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein and former NBC newsman Matt Lauer’s workplace sexual misconduct and ensuing cover-ups.
According to NPD Bookscan, which measures print book sales nationwide, Farrow’s book was outsold by three other books published last week, including John Grisham’s “The Guardians” which sold 97,000 copies, Elton John’s “Me: Elton John Official Autobiography” which sold 71,000 copies, and Kotb’s “I Really Needed This Today,” which sold 55,000 copies.
The gold standard of first-week book sales is former former First Lady Michelle Obama’s “Becoming,” which sold a whopping 713,000 copies during its 2018 debut, Bookscan reports.
Despite coming in third place in terms of book sales, “Catch and Kill” -- published by Little Brown -- is still the second-ranked book on The New York Times best-sellers list, which combines both print and e-book nonfiction literature, with Elton John’s autobiography coming in at number one.
The hype behind Farrow’s exposé helped to push it to the top of the Amazon sales chart before its release date, with the book still on Amazon’s top 10 best-sellers at number six.
Farrow’s “War on Peace,” released last year, spent five weeks on the Times' nonfiction best-sellers list in 2018.
Meanwhile, both Weinstein and Lauer have refuted the allegations made in Farrow’s most recent book, with Lauer even writing an open letter obtained by Variety in response to “Catch and Kill.”