Sales of U.S. Constitution Reach All-Time High, The NPD Group Says

Sales of the U.S. Constitution have risen by double digits since 2016, according to global information company The NPD Group. In fact 275,000 print editions of the U.S. Constitution were sold in 2016, the year Donald Trump was elected president, which is the greatest number of print edition sales of the U.S. Constitution sold since NPD BookScan began tracking U.S. book sales in 2004.

Average monthly sales of the U.S. Constitution have increased 60 percent since President Trump took office, with an average of 19,800 copies sold each month during his first 33 months in office. By way of comparison, an average of 7,500 were sold monthly in Barack Obama’s first term and 5,600 in George W. Bush’s second term. “Current year-to-date sales are more than 50,000 units higher than at any point in the terms of both Barack Obama and George W. Bush, and we still have more than two months left in 2019,” said Kristen McLean, books industry analyst, NPD Bookscan.

U.S. Constitution print-edition sales tended to spike around key new events during President Trump’s first term. These spikes were particularly apparent after July 21, 2016, when Donald Trump was nominated, again after November 8, 2016 when he was elected, and after January 20, 2017, when he was inaugurated. Other notable sales spikes occurred after the “Unite the Right” protests in Charlottesville, Virginia, on August 11 to 12, 2017, and again around September 4, 2018, when the Brett Kavanaugh Supreme Court nomination hearings began. The most recent sales spike is occurring now, in the context of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announcement of the start of formal impeachment hearings.

“There have been some other smaller spikes in Constitution sales in recent history—such as 2010, following the 2009 founding of the Tea Party,” said McLean. “However, that spike is dwarfed by what we have been seeing since these last few years. Regardless of your political affiliation, there is no doubt that our current political climate has done wonders for constitutional engagement.”

About NPD BookScan
NPD BookScan is the gold standard in point-of-sale tracking for the publishing market, covering approximately 85 percent of all the print books sold in the U.S. through direct reporting from all major retailers including Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Walmart, Target, independent bookstores, and many others. Each sale of the more than 16 million units tracked on a weekly basis includes geographic information making it possible to identify key markets, map regional sales trends, and index the likelihood of purchase in 200 major metro areas. NPD BookScan is also the exclusive provider of ALR data for Barnes & Noble, Target, Walmart, and Sam’s Club to U.S. publishers.