Saturday, June 16, 2018

Hey non-e, no

If you're wondering why there's a preponderance of self-help (for example) in the above list, this is what people buy the most of nonfiction wise.

I don't know about you but I pick certain patterns: second person titles that are downright aspirational or speak to general concerns in a non-threatening manner.
The diaries of Anne Frank and Xaviera Hollander are of interest for different reasons.

The Purpose Driven Life snuck by me and I'd not heard of Rick Warren. For me at least, Who Moved My Cheese? and The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People are more famous than their authors.

In the same stratosphere when it comes to sales are such works as What to Expect When You're Expecting by Arlene Eisenberg and Heidi Murkoff, Kon-Tiki: Across the Pacific in a Raft by the Norwegian writer Thor Heyerdahl, The Power of Positive Thinking - Norman Vincent Peale, The Secret courtesy of Rhonda Byrne, Fear of Flying by Erica Jong and Desmond Morris' The Naked Ape.

II

This keen, if populist, interest in the world around us is soon tempered by the fact that no nonfiction has sold more than 100 million copies, the 1937 classic Think and Grow Rich has twenty two fiction titles above it; admittedly seven of these are Harry Potter. It also shares the stage with 20,000 Leagues under the Sea, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes and The Bridges of Madison County, having sold in the vicinity of 60 million copies.
There are likewise forty books interspersed among the top ten nonfiction; most are fiction with a couple being religious tracts or fictional constructs of the inevitable outcome of their faith. Like Covey's book, The Wind in the Willows and The Great Gatsby have shifted 25 million units.

III

When you think about it, since we were talking about publishers, they're not that interested in your engaging campfire tale or the information about ergonomists shared online. To at least some, the subject matter is no cause for offence (though the reader may have a different take) so much as a source of revenue. It's when that information is disseminated through some other means that they miss out.
The Ralston Society can take a bow for publishing Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill.

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