Clinton-Patterson novel sells 250,000 copies on first week

NEW YORK (AP) — Bill Clinton’s debut novel had the year’s biggest opening so far for a work of fiction.

“The President is Missing,” the thriller he co-wrote with James Patterson, sold 250,000 copies on its first week.

Alfred A. Knopf and Little, Brown and Co., the book’s co-publishers, announced that the number includes hardcover, e-book and audio sales.

NPD BookScan, which tracks around 85 percent of print sales, reported sales of 152,000 copies. That’s BookScan’s top-selling fiction debut since the latest “Diary of a Wimpy Kid,” which came out last fall, and biggest first week for adult fiction since Harper Lee’s “Go Set a Watchman” sold more than 700,000 hardcover copies in 2015.

AP Former president Bill Clinton and author James Patterson pose for photographers during an event to promote their novel ‘The President is Missing’ in New York.