The First IBPA Bestsellers Sampler
Lewis Carroll’s Humpty Dumpty would be right at home in the wonderland of bestseller lists, where any compiler could say, “When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean.”
What bestseller usually means is, “book whose sales in certain parts of certain channels during a very short time topped the sales of most other books in those parts of those channels during that very short time.”
But it’s easy to argue that how many readers a book reaches throughout its life matters a whole lot more than how many readers it reaches in limited arenas within a tiny time frame.
That’s because, as independent publishers demonstrate every day, a book is not just a physical or digital object. It’s a mechanism for delivering benefits. Maybe it provides a way to solve a problem or understand an event, a trend, a syndrome, or a person. Maybe it offers entertainment, even escape. Whatever a book does, if it does it well—and if its publisher is intelligently active on its behalf—early readers will talk about it, and what they say will ripple out, often creating a lengthy soaring sales curve.
In this issue of the Independent (“See More Bestsellers Stories”), and in the May, June, and July 2011 issues, we’ve been highlighting some of these sales curves through stories members sent about the books that have sold best for them over time. The list below features the top sellers among those bestsellers.
We’ve set the floor for the list at cumulated sales of 100,000 copies. Figures, as you’ll see, are rounded in almost all cases, and many of them reflect sales of book content in various formats and languages through various intermediaries. Some of the figures—particularly those for books featured in the earlier installments of our series—are probably outdated at this point, and some books featured earlier that hadn’t yet leaped over the 100,000-copy barrier may have done so by now.
Updates are welcome, and all of you who haven’t yet shared stories about books with sales above 100,000 are hereby invited to do that.
—Judith Appelbaum (judithappelbaum@aol.com)
Bestsellers Sampler #1
A Framework for Understanding Poverty by Ruby K. Payne
1.5 million
aha! Process, Inc.
To Train Up a Child by Michael and Debi Pearl
650,000+
No Greater Joy
Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon Morell and Mary G. Enig
420,000
NewTrends Publishing
Good and Evil by Michael Pearl
400,000
No Greater Joy
How to Raise a Puppy You Can Live With by Clarice Rutherford and David Neil
400,000.
Alpine Publications
The Girl Who Owned a City by O.T. Nelson
375,000
Lerner Publishing Group
Created to Be His Help Meet by Debi Pearl
350,000
No Greater Joy
The Way I Feel by Janan Cain
300,000
Parenting Press
It’s MY Body by Lory Freeman, illustrations by Carol Deach
285,000
Parenting Press
Canadian Rockies Trail Guide by Brian Patton and Bart Robinson
250,000
Summerthought Publishing
Monet’s Passion: Ideas, Inspiration, and Insights from the Painter’s Gardens with text and photographs by Elizabeth Murray
165,000
Pomegranate Communications, Inc
Emotional Intelligence 2.0 by Travis Bradberry and Jean Greaves
162,000
TalentSmart®
Credit Card and Debt Management: A Step-by-Step How-To Guide for Organizing Debt and Saving Money on Interest Payments by Scott Bilker
148,490
Press One Publishing
Aura Reading Through All Your Senses by Rose Rosetree
136,000
Women’s Intuition Worldwide
Shaman: The Paintings of Susan Seddon Boulet
120,000
Pomegranate Communications, Inc.
Your Pregnancy and Newborn Journey by Jeanne Warren Lindsay and Jean Brunelli
113,075
Morning Glory Press
Your Present: A Half-Hour of Peace by Susie Mantell
110,000
Relax Intuit™ LC
Lose Weight, Have More Energy and Be Happier in 10 Days by Peter Glickman
110,000
TheMasterCleanse.com
104 Activities That Build: Self-Esteem, Teamwork, Communication, Anger Management, Self-Discovery, and Coping Skills by Alanna Jones
102,026
Rec Room Publishing LLC
Save Your Hands! The Complete Guide to Injury Prevention and Ergonomics for Manual Therapists by Lauriann Greene and Richard W. Goggins
100,000
Body of Work Books
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