Melania Trump Book and ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ See Post-Election Sales Bumps

Melania Trump’s memoir, Melania, and Margaret Atwood’s dystopian classic The Handmaid’s Tale saw sales bumps following President-elect Donald Trump’s 2024 election win against Vice President Kamala Harris.
Trump, the Republican nominee, was declared the winner of the presidency by The Associated Press (AP) early Wednesday morning when he pushed over the required threshold of 270 Electoral College votes.
So far, Trump has beaten Harris, the Democratic nominee, in the swing states of Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, Georgia and North Carolina and 23 Republican-leaning states. He also secured four of the five electoral votes in Nebraska and one in Maine, bringing his total to 295 Electoral College votes.
In October, Melania Trump released a book detailing the various stages of her life, including her Slovenian childhood, modeling career, courtship with Donald Trump, life as a mother and her time as first lady of the United States.
Following her husband’s election victory, Melania Trump’s book was listed at the top of the Amazon Best Sellers list as of Thursday evening.
In contrast, Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale was No. 3 on the Amazon list as of Thursday evening.
The 1998 book, which was later adapted into an award-winning Hulu series, takes place under a totalitarian regime that enslaves the few remaining fertile women amid declining birthrates. These women, known as Handmaids, are forced to produce children for the ruling class of the totalitarian regime.
During Trump’s first term as president, women dressed up as handmaids to protest legislation restricting women’s access to reproductive health services.
No. 2 on the Amazon list Thursday evening was a much more light-hearted children’s book for Thanksgiving titled How to Catch a Turkey.
Other dark futuristic books were also selling well—George Orwell’s 1984 was No. 16 and Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 was No. 21 as of Thursday evening. Meanwhile, Vice President-elect JD Vance’s memoir Hillbilly Elegy was No. 8 and Donald Trump’s photo book Save America was No. 31 as of Thursday evening.
“Fiction and non-fiction books that feature fascism, feminism, dystopian worlds and both right-and-left leaning politics rocketed up our sales charts with the election results,” Barnes & Noble’s director of books, Shannon DeVito, told The Associated Press (AP).
Women’s reproductive rights were a touchstone of Harris’ campaign after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June 2022, ending the federal protection to abortion and leaving the issue up to the states. Over two dozen states enacted some kind of abortion ban after Roe v. Wade was overturned.
During her campaign, Harris promised that if she became president and Congress passed a bill to restore reproductive freedom nationwide, she would “proudly sign it into law.”
Trump, meanwhile, took credit for the end of federal abortion rights. During his first term, Trump nominated three conservative Supreme Court Justices—Brett Kavanaugh, Amy Coney Barrett and Neil Gorsuch—who voted to overturn Roe v. Wade.
The president-elect has repeatedly said that abortion must be left up to the states.
AP VoteCast, a survey of over 120,000 U.S. voters conducted by NORC at the University of Chicago for several publications including AP, found that Harris did better among female voters than Trump, winning 53 percent of the voting bloc compared to Trump’s 46 percent.
President Biden did better with women in the 2020 election, winning 55 percent, than Harris did in Tuesday’s election. Meanwhile, Trump did worse among women four years ago, winning 43 percent, according to VoteCast.
There was a gender divide between young voters in the 2024 election. Roughly 6 in 10 women between the ages of 18 and 29 voted for Harris while over half of men in the same age group voted for Trump.
This article includes reporting from The Associated Press.