Taylor Swift wrote the biggest ‘bestseller’ of the year — and without selling a book on Amazon

Add “best-selling author” to Taylor Swift’s seemingly ever-expanding list of achievements.

The book “The Eras Tour Book”, self-published by the artist, achieved one of the best launches of all time for a work of non-fiction, selling 814 thousand printed copies in the week ending November 30th.

The only book that performed better, according to Circana BookScan, was “A Promised Land”, by Barack Obama, which sold 816,300 copies. However, Swift would have easily surpassed that number if she had opted for a more traditional publishing path.

Unlike most authors, Swift chose to sell her book without the help of Amazon, Walmart or Barnes & Noble, choosing Target as the exclusive distributor. (Not only does this draw people into the store, which likely benefits Target shareholders, but it also puts more money in Swift’s and Target’s pockets, since there’s no need to discount the book from its $39 list price. 99, around R$240).

By the end of December, Swift and Target expect to more than double that sales number. The first printing of “The Eras Tour Book” was 2 million copies. If this sells out, it will surpass the numbers for the best-selling title of the year. At the moment, Colleen Hoover occupies the first place with her novel “É Assim Que Acaba”, which has sold 1.3 million copies.

The last few years have been huge for Swift. In April, she released a surprise double album, “The Tortured Poets Department,” which sold nearly 3 million physical copies, more than the rest of the top 10 albums combined. The Eras tour, in turn, raised more than US$1 billion and broke several records. Last year alone, the tour sold 4.3 million tickets, which is more than the total number sold by Elton John on his five-year farewell tour. A film about the tour quickly became the biggest concert film of all time.