Taylor Swift owns just about every other media segment, including being the most-streamed artist on Spotify in 2024, so why not publishing?
The singer/songwriter’s The Eras Tour Book, which had fans lining up at Target stores this weekend, had one of the biggest debuts ever, according to the Associated Press, citing data from Circana. All told, The Eras Tour Book scanned 814,000 copies in its debut frame.
The only book to top Swift’s, according to Circana, is the 2020 first volume of Barack Obama’s presidential memoirs, A Promised Land. And it only barely edged The Eras Tour Book, selling just over 816,000 copies.
Taylor Swift’s accomplishment is even more spectacular given the fact that The Eras Tour was only available at Target stores. It is also notable, since fans and the media were not entirely kind to the book, calling out errors and typos.
It’s not the first time that the superstar eschewed traditional distribution channels. Last year, in the midst of the strike, Swift partnered with AMC to release Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour in what was a first distribution initiative for the circuit.
At $123M worldwide and $93.2M, the pic repped the biggest opening ever for a concert film. The film went on to make $267.1M worldwide. Given there was no studio involved, the majority of that money went to Swift who also sold the streaming rights to to Disney+ for a reported $75M. So, after P&A and production costs, The Eras Tour turned a tidy net profit of $172M.