How Barack Obama’s Book Sales Stack Up Against Other Big Memoirs

Obama's fourth book, A Promised Land, was released on Tuesday, when it set a first-day sales record of almost 890,000 copies, which includes audiobooks, e-books and pre-orders. That marked the biggest 24-hour sales period for any book published by Penguin Random House, which has also published the Fifty Shades of Grey series and John Grisham's books.

It's not just a great debut. It puts him well ahead of first-day sales of memoirs by his two predecessors, George W. Bush (220,000) and Bill Clinton (400,000). And Obama's the bestselling author in the house, though not by much-his wife, Michelle, sold 725,000 for the first day of her memoir, Becoming.