Taylor Swift’s self-published book, released over Thanksgiving weekend, saw one of the largest sales numbers of 2024.
Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour Book needed less than a fortnight to become the fastest-selling new book of the year.
The book, a coffee-table hard-cover that reflects on Swift’s popular tour, sold 814,000 print copies over the Thanksgiving holiday weekend, according to Circana’s BookScan, a platform which tracks book sales. No other book has sold as well this year, the platform said in a news release.
Swift’s book is now the fastest-selling new book of the year and the second-highest adult non-fiction book release in BookScan’s history. Only former US president Barack Obama’s memoir A Promised Land did better, with 816,300 print copies sold in its first week in 2020, according to Bookscan.
The Eras Tour Book, which cost US$39.99 ($68.59), was available only at Target stores and the retailer’s website, though, while Obama’s was available at other major retailers.
Swift announced the new book on October 15, saying it would coincide with the CD and vinyl release of her April album The Tortured Poets Department: The Anthology. All the items, she said, would be available through Target only.
On Black Friday, people flooded Target stores in the wee hours of the morning to snag copies. The 256-page hard-cover features hundreds of photos from the tour, along with behind-the-scenes sketches and reflections written by Swift, according to the book’s description on Target’s website.
But in the days since its release, Swift’s book garnered a new name online – “The Errors Tour Book”, as some fans noted the book was riddled with typos and other mistakes, like cut-off words and photos.
In one example shared by a TikToker who bought the book, the song title this is me trying from Swift’s Folklore album is written as “this is me rying.”
“I know I’m not the only one disappointed with The Eras Tour Book, but I haven’t seen anyone else talk about the glaringly obvious grammatical errors and clunky sentences within the pages,” the fan wrote.
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Swift released the book through Taylor Swift Publications without the help of a traditional publishing house. She did something similar with the concert film Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour, sidestepping major distributors and working directly with AMC.
Swift’s “Eras Tour” – for which the artist performed more than 150 shows across five continents – comes to a close this weekend with three shows scheduled in Vancouver.
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