Woodward book trails Bolton, Mary Trump in first-week sales

Veteran Watergate journalist Bob Woodward’s new book, “Rage,” sold 600,000 print and digital copies during the first week it was available in the U.S., trailing other recent bestsellers critical of President Trump and his administration.

In June, more than 780,000 copies of former national security adviser John Bolton’s book, “The Room Where It Happened: A White House Memoir,” were sold in the week after it was published, while Mary Trump’s “Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World’s Most Dangerous Man,” sold more than 950,000 copies in pre-orders and first-day sales on July 14. Mary Trump is the president’s niece.

Woodward’s, Bolton’s and Mary Trump’s books were all published by Simon & Schuster.

“Rage” is the second book focused on Trump by Woodward, who has written 21 books about U.S. presidents going back to the Nixon administration and “All The President’s Men.”

“Fear: Trump in the White House” was published in September 2018 ahead of the midterm elections. More than 750,000 copies were sold in the first week it was available, according to Simon & Schuster, which added that more than 2 million copies overall were sold.

Woodward told CNN President Jeff Zucker during a Tuesday interview that “historians I know are going to be writing about this for decades, and they’re going to say, ‘What the F happened to America in 2016, 2019 and 2020?” in regards to the Trump era.

Trump, who gave Woodward more than nine hours of interviews over several months, called Woodward’s new book “boring” during a recent appearance on “Fox & Friends.”