Chani Nicholas, who has the #7 bestselling book in the country on PW's most recent bestseller list, is ready for newspaper horoscopes as well as general conversations about astrology to go beyond the basic sun signs—the twelve zodiac signs including Capricorn, Aquarius, etc. The resident astrologer of OprahMag.com is doing just that in her debut book, You Were Born for This: Astrology for Radical Self-Acceptance, which has sold over 14,500 print units since it was first published by HarperOne on January 7.
“I wrote this book so that we could start having deeper conversations, collectively, about our entire chart, not just one fraction of it,” she tells PW. “You Were Born for This is a user friendly guide to the main keys of your chart, without which we are lost, swimming in a sea of symbols and statements that we aren’t sure how to rank in importance.”
Astrology books rarely hit PW’s bestsellers list, but the popular astrologer has a strong social media presence—and over 450,000 followers across Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram—and You Were Born for This received a lot of pre-publication attention. Marketing and publicity included coverage in the New York Times, LA Magazine, VanityFair.com, among other media outlets, while pre-sale incentives bundled the book with a free download of the “2020: Year Ahead for Your Sign” workshop, in addition to author events at the 92nd Street Y and Brooklyn Museum. Now in its seventh printing, You Were Born for This currently has over 62,500 copies available in print, according to the publisher.
The surprise bestseller looks at lesser-known systems within astrology and their complexities—not only the position of the sun at birth, but rising signs, their ruling planets, and the houses the signs are in. Additionally, Nicholas encourages readers to focus on parts of themselves that are often overlooked, which she refers to as growth edges.
“Growth edges are the places in us that are challenging to admit, deal with, or embrace,” she says. “They are invitations for our own self-development. They require that we are humble enough to learn and willing to do the work that self-improvement demands of us.”
Nicholas, who shares parts of her personal story in You Were Born for This, says the main goal of the book is to inform readers “that radically accepting who we are, dedicating ourselves to our own self-development, and moving unapologetically towards our life’s purpose will not only help us to live a life of meaning, but it makes us better equipped to serve the world in the ways that we are specifically meant to.”
