NEW YORK, Sept 15 — Hillary Clinton’s newest book, Stronger Together, which provides a policy blueprint for where she hopes to take the country if she is elected president, sold just 2,912 copies in its first week on sale, according to Nielsen BookScan.

Both Clinton and her running mate, Senator Tim Kaine, have promoted the book on the campaign trail, but the sales figure, which tallies about 80 per cent of booksellers nationwide and does not include e-books, makes the book what the publishing industry would consider a flop.

First-week sales typically account for around a third of the total sold, thanks to the publicity blitzes that accompany publishers’ biggest releases. By comparison, Clinton’s 2014 memoir, Hard Choices, which also fell short of expectations, sold more than 85,000 copies in its first week.

Clinton’s more revealing 2003 memoir, Living History, about her years in the White House, sold about six times as many copies in its first week as Hard Choices.

Candidates often release hurriedly-written books during their campaigns, often aimed at spreading their message and attracting publicity, rather than topping the best-seller charts.

In 2006, Senator Barack Obama published The Audacity of Hope, which laid out his vision for the country. In February 2008, when Obama’s campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination against Clinton gained momentum, the book averaged sales of more than 35,000 a week.

Others cash in after an election: Sarah Palin’s Going Rogue: An American Life sold 469,000 copies in its first week in November 2009.

Stronger Together, whose cover shows Clinton and Kaine waving, arrived closer to Election Day than most of these types of books.

Named after the campaign’s slogan, Stronger Together offers readers, according to the book jacket, "specific and practical solutions, while also articulating a bold and expansive vision of change and renewal.”

Its roughly 250 pages intersperse bullet-point policy ideas, like "launch a national initiative for suicide prevention” and "humanely address the Central American migrant crisis,” with photographs of Clinton and Kaine on the campaign trail, charts in the campaign’s signature chunky font and highlights from Clinton’s speeches.

Aides said that the proceeds were going to charity, and that the release was part of a larger plan to more clearly communicate Clinton’s vision for the country, rather than just her case against Donald Trump, her Republican opponent.

Timed to the September 6 release of the book, Clinton "will do a series of Stronger Together speeches over the course of the next several weeks,” a campaign spokesman, Jennifer Palmieri said. (A case of pneumonia caused Clinton to postpone the first of those speeches, on an "inclusive economy,” initially scheduled for Tuesday in California.)

Clinton and Kaine held the book up at campaign rallies last week.

At one point, Clinton greeted reporters on her campaign plane holding a copy of the book.

"We’re putting out a book tomorrow, called Stronger Together, which is our blueprint for America’s future,” she explained. "We wanted voters to be able to find, in one easy place, all of the various plans and policies that I’ve been talking about throughout this campaign.”

A spokesman for the publisher, Simon & Schuster, which also published Clinton’s earlier books and Bill Clinton’s best-selling memoir, My Life, declined to comment about the first-week sales. — The New York Times