This science fiction romance novel outsold Hillary Clinton last week

Hillary Clinton's book Hard Choices hit shelves last Tuesday, but it was only the second biggest hardcover of the week. According to Nielsen BookScan, which tracks sales of physical books by both online and retail outlets, Clinton sold 85,721 hardcover copies. Meanwhile, Written in My Own Heart's Blood by Diana Gabaldon sold 88,751. Written in My Own Heart's Blood is the 8th installment in Gabaldon's historical science fiction romance series Outlander.

"Who is Diana Gabaldon?" political twitter frantically asked. How is Diana Gabaldon outselling potential presidential candidate, and former first lady Hillary Clinton? The fact that Written in My Own Heart's Blood is outselling a major political memoir is stunning. Even though Diana Gabaldon is a respected and beloved author, it is unexpected that she would outsell a former first-lady in printed editions.

In print books, nonfiction far outsells fiction. Even with major blockbuster sales like 50 Shades of Gray, nonfiction books sold more than twice as many copies as fiction books.

Once you add ebooks to the equation, the stats skew in favor of fiction. So much money is made on fiction ebooks that they end up outselling nonfiction entirely. It would be completely understandable (expected even) for Hillary to be outsold in ebooks, or even ebooks and print combined. But in print sales, she should be dominating.

So, Hillary, things don't look good. Diana Gabaldon is beating you in print sales when you both have star power. You're competitive sure, but based on genre alone, it shouldn't be this close of a race.

Will you support Vox’s explanatory journalism?

Most news outlets make their money through advertising or subscriptions. But when it comes to what we’re trying to do at Vox, there are a couple of big issues with relying on ads and subscriptions to keep the lights on:

First, advertising dollars go up and down with the economy. We often only know a few months out what our advertising revenue will be, which makes it hard to plan ahead.

Second, we’re not in the subscriptions business. Vox is here to help everyone understand the complex issues shaping the world — not just the people who can afford to pay for a subscription. We believe that’s an important part of building a more equal society. And we can’t do that if we have a paywall.

So even though advertising is still our biggest source of revenue, we also seek grants and reader support. (And no matter how our work is funded, we have strict guidelines on editorial independence.)

If you also believe that everyone deserves access to trusted high-quality information, will you make a gift to Vox today? Any amount helps.

One-Time Monthly Annual

$5/month

$10/month

$25/month

$50/month

Other

$

Yes, I'll give $5/month

Yes, I'll give $5/month

We accept credit card, Apple Pay, and Google Pay. You can also contribute via