GRAY MAKES HAY ON PERSONAL SUCCESS
John Gray's nine bestselling books have dealt mainly with male/female relationships, including the classic Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus, and garnered sales of more than 6.5 million copies in the U.S. plus translations into 40 languages worldwide. His 10th book, How to Get What You Want and Want What You Have: A Practical and Spiritual Guide to Personal Success is his first book foray into personal fulfillment and it seems to have hit the mark. The book lands in the #2 spot in its first week on sale and HarperCollins has gone back to press three times after a 210,000-copy first printing; total in print is currently 407,500. Gray will be profiled in Forbes next month. His nationally syndicated column, John Gray's Mars and Venus, is published in more than a dozen major newspapers in the U.S. and internationally.
NOT HIM YET
Percolating below the top 15 nonfiction bestsellers is Al Franken's Why Not Me? The Making and Unmaking of the Franken Presidency, published by Delacorte mid-January with a 175,000-copy first printing. Franken has appeared on many national programs including Today, The Howard Stern Show, Politically Incorrect, Live with Regis &Kathie Lee. He has made the bookstore rounds in bookstores in Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Washington, D.C., and throughout this month will be visiting other cities, including New York Chicago, Denver, Portland and Seattle. In case you missed it, the advertising campaign featured a picture of the book against a background of Franken's resignation speech from the book masked as an editorial article, bearing the headline: "President Franken Resigns After 144 Days in Office: Pardons Self, Addresses the Nation." Real life is never that easy or as much fun.
NORTHRUP HEADS UP
Christiane Northrup gets another shot at bestsellerdom, thanks to a one-hour Oprah appearance the last Wednesday in January. Published five years ago by Bantam and boasting close to a million copies in print after about 40 trips to press, Women's Bodies, Women's Wisdom lands in the #4 spot. The book did make it onto PW's trade paper list last March when Northrup debuted her PBS special.
BELOW THE TOP-15
Knopf has two fiction hardcovers simmering below the top 15. Sue Miller's While I Was Gone is just out and is getting excellent reviews, including a starred one in PW. The publisher has made a reading group guide for the book available on the Web. Knopf's initial printing was 75,000 copies and it has already gone back to press two more times, bringing the total to 87,500.
The other Knopf title, Glamorama by Bret Easton Ellis, is receiving mixed reviews. According to the publisher, Michiko Kakutani's review in the New York Times was so critical that several accounts mentioned that it had actually brought people into stores asking for the book because they wanted to read it for themselves. Knopf's first printing was 57,500, and the house went back for a 3500-copy third printing, making 66,500 books in print. The book's jacket illustration is a die-cut representation of a disco ball; on the binding are paparazzi photos of some of the famous and glamorous personalities in the novel. In its "Just the Fax" newsletter, the house offered a signed first edition to any bookseller who correctly identifies 10 of the celebrities. Here's one clue: Monica did not make the cut.
JUST WHAT THE DOCTOR ORDERED
Inner Traditions is enjoying excellent sales for its Healing Arts Press title Gesundheit -- the book behind the successful movie Patch Adams. The book sold 100,000 copies in the five weeks between the movie's Christmas Day premiere and the end of January.
