No One In America Bought Kim Kardashian’s Book Of Selfies, But Heaps Of Australians Did

Back in May Kim Kardashian released Selfish, a 445-page selection of the thousands on thousands of selfies she’s posted to Instagram. It attracted a lot of negative publicity because 1) she’s Kim Kardashian and 2) it’s a book of selfies, and as the commenters on Amazon are so clearly aware, there’s no easier or lazier way to pretend like you’re a culture-snob than by ripping on a Kardashian, selfies, or anything else that became culturally significant after 2010.

“Our society’s imploding because people take pictures of themselves! I have no genuine problems in my life!”

The US sales figures for Selfish have just come out, and it’s an unmitigated bomb: Nielsen Bookscan figures indicate that the book’s only sold 32,000 copies in the States, and while that number doesn’t cover non-bookshop sales, that’s still pretty miniscule for a celebrity of Kardashian’s stature in a market as big as America.

But happily for Kim, the Australian sales figures are looking a lot rosier; according to the Herald, Selfish has sold 7,200 copies, making it three times more popular per capita here than in the States. Selfish was number three on the Dymocks best-seller list in its first week of release, and sold so many copies that it prompted a reorder. Hardie Grant, the book’s domestic publisher, said they had trouble keeping up with demand.

Is local demand for Selfish so high because we published a very serious review of it when it came out? A high-up anonymous publishing source I didn’t just make up says “yes, yes it is”. And if you’re about to give the “Kim Kardashian stoopid” dead horse another flogging, just remember that she’s done more to raise awareness of the Armenian Genocide than the entire Australian government. So, there that is.