Though it's been 15 years since Stephanie Meyer debuted Twilight, the love for the franchise is still very much alive as Midnight Sun, the much-anticipated companion novel, has sold a million copies across all formats in its first week of sales in North America, publisher Hachete Book Group and Little, Brown Books for Young Readers announced on Thursday.
The combined sales figure for Midnight Sun, which was released on August 4, includes pre-orders, sales of print books, eBooks and audiobooks. Additional incoming orders from consumers also apply to the figure and the book is also currently on top of the New York Times Children's Series list stated The Hollywood Reporter.
Midnight Sun is also an international bestseller with top spots in the UK, Brazil, Holland and Germany. It is the second bestselling book in France.
"We’re absolutely thrilled to bring people back to the Twilight saga and celebrate this major achievement with Stephanie and the fans and booksellers who’ve supported her for the last 15 years," said Megan Tingley, Executive Vice President and Publisher of Little, Brown Books for Young Readers. "In addition to the breathtaking sales, it is profoundly gratifying to hear how much the fans are loving the novel. The resounding response has been worth the wait!”
Meyer's Midnight Sun is a retelling of her Twilight love story but from the point of Edward Cullen, instead of Bella Swan. She first teased the novel in a surprise announcement in May by featuring a countdown clock on her website's homepage. The clock was also posted on the social media pages of her production company Fickle Fish Films.
The author filmed a video that aired on Good Morning America, wherein she officially announced the release of Midnight Sun. "It's a crazy time right now and I wasn't sure if it was the right one to put this book out but some of you have been waiting for just so, so long, it didn't seem fair to make you wait anymore," she said.
Though Meyers was originally set to publish Midnight Sun in 2008, she cancelled the plans after a copy of her manuscript was leaked online. The author then posted a partial rough draft of the work on her website but never released a completed story. At the time, she referred to Midnight Sun as "an exercise in character development that got wildly out of hand."
"While I was procrastinating some real editing work (I’m always at my most creative when procrastinating), I started to wonder how the first chapter of Twilight would read if it were written from Edward’s perspective. There is so much more to his side of the story than there is to Bella’s in that first chapter," she wrote online.
Meyer's Twilight books have sold more than 100 million copies worldwide. The popular franchise centred on a vampire and teenage human falling in love and grew to become a cult phenomenon after it was adapted for the 2008 film of the same name, starring Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart. Each book in the franchise was adapted for the film before closing the curtains in 2012 with the final installment, Breaking Dawn: Part 2.
For its opening weekend in the US and Canada, Twilight grossed $393.6 million worldwide. The second film in the film franchise, New Moon, grossed $709.7 million. Meanwhile, Eclipse grossed $698.4 million, Breaking Dawn: Part 1 grossed $712.2 million and Breaking Dawn: Part 2 finished with $829.7 million worldwide.
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