I feel bad for Nicholas Sparks, whose book "The Last Song" sits atop fiction best seller lists this week. He's about to get swept up by a tsunami called "The Lost Symbol."
Publisher Knopf Doubleday said Dan Brown's thriller had set a one-day sales record for global English-language adult fiction (the record was previously held by Thomas Harris for "Hannibal," according to the Guardian.) Another 600,000 copies were ordered up at the printer, adding to the initial draw of five million.
Sales of "The Lost Symbol" don't approach the level of young adult books such as the Harry Potter series or Stephenie Meyer's Twilight series. “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince,” the sixth of J.K. Rowling’s fantasy series, sold about 9 million copies in the U.S. and Great Britain in its first 24 hours.
Many will be scrutinizing sales figures for "The Lost Symbol" for another reason: to gauge the impact of e-books. It's the first blockbuster release since the Kindle and other e-readers have gained traction. And it arrives amid concern from some publishers that e-book sales will hurt profit margins. Knopf Doubleday hasn't released a breakdown of digital vs. print sales, but a report in The New York Times said that after the first day "a person familiar with the sales figures said far less than 5 percent were electronic book editions."