NEW YORK (AFP) - Investigative journalist Bob Woodward's incendiary Fear: Trump In The White House has become the fastest selling book in Simon and Schuster's history, the publisher said on Tuesday (Sept 18), shifting 1.1 million copies in its first week.

The tell-all account of the inner workings of United States President Donald Trump's administration sold a staggering 900,000 on its Sept 11 release day, according to the company's figures, which include print, audio and digital versions.

"There is only one word to describe the sales of Fear - and that word is huge," said Mr Jonathan Karp, president of the 94-year-old publisher.

"What's especially gratifying is the appreciation readers and reviewers have for the integrity and importance of Bob Woodward's reporting."

Massive demand for the 357-page work has forced the publisher to go back for a 10th print run, it said, and the rights have been sold in 24 countries.

"Fear" is the latest in a string of accounts of the Trump White House coming from those close - or sometimes apparently not so close - to the President.

The book's performance outstrips even Mr Michael Wolff's Fire And Fury, also about the Trump administration, which sold more than a million copies in the first week of its January release.

Mr Wolff's book was followed by former FBI director James Comey's A Higher Loyalty and Unhinged, by former Trump adviser Omarosa Manigault Newman.

Mr Trump has sought to discredit several of the claims made by Mr Woodward, who is famous for his coverage of the Watergate scandal and the role it played in Mr Richard Nixon's resignation from the presidency in 1974.

Mr Trump has called the book a "joke", "a scam" and just another in a series of "assaults" against him. He criticised Mr Woodward's use of anonymous sources, in particular.