When President Gordon B. Hinckley's new book, "Standing for Something: 10 Neglected Virtues That Will Heal Your Hearts and Homes," was released in February, no one dreamed its sales would be so dramatic. It was, after all, an experiment.
This would be the first time an LDS Church president had written a book with a national imprint — Random House. Specifically, its Times Books division.
Sheri Dew, a Deseret Book vice president, has been in the business for 25 years, yet this book exceeded her expectations. It was Dew who thought it would be appropriate to seek a national publisher, and so she acted as President Hinckley's agent in shopping the manuscript.
"We liked the people at Random House the best," Dew said. "They seemed the most fair-minded and the kind of people who would honor their commitments — and they have done just what they said they would do."
Deseret Book edited the manuscript initially, then made an agreement with Random House on a "dual distribution arrangement" between the two publishers.
The original printing was 140,000 copies, according to Will Weisser, assistant director of publicity for Times Books, a subsidiary of Random House in New York. "That was the first printing, but now we have had 10 printings, and there are 470,000 books in print. The demand has been strong and steady — a very big number — much more than we anticipated. It has been a very positive experience."
To booksellers, a printing of a half-million copies suggests that a title is in very high demand, but there are wildly different numbers for different books. According to Kris Moran, a publicist at Scholastic Books in New York, the first three Harry Potter books together comprised a printing of 20 million.
There is no way to determine an exact figure for the number of books sold for any given title. Best-seller lists provide an indication of how popular any given book becomes, but there is no ballpark figure required for a book to be classified as a best seller. The New York Times rankings, for instance, reflect the sales figures at almost 4,000 bookstores, plus wholesalers serving 50,000 other retailers. Those figures are compiled, then statistically weighted to represent sales in all such outlets nationwide.
That means a book could make the list with relatively lower sales figures one week than the next, and those figures, according to a spokeswoman from The New York Times, are a "closely guarded secret."
Weisser said that sales for President Hinckley's book have been especially strong in Utah and the Western United States but that the book has been visible on several best-seller lists nationally, including The New York Times, USA Today, Publishers Weekly and Amazon.com's "Hot 100." Weisser said that in the last week, the book has ranked No. 76 in popularity out of the millions of books Amazon.com offers. Weisser said it is impossible to determine how many buyers of the book are LDS, but he suspects a great many of them are, even though the book was written specifically for the non-LDS market.
"We know anecdotally that people are buying the book not only for themselves but for other people. As a gift book, we expect it to remain popular through the Christmas season. The sales of the book have really been impressive. There is a lot of strong demand."
Although Weisser knows of no immediate plans for a follow-up book by President Hinckley, he considers it "a strong possibility."
Gary Swapp, executive vice president of wholesale operations at Deseret Book, said, "We gather that most of the sales are still in the LDS market. Huge numbers have been sold through Wal-Mart, most of them through the 10 local stores. Wal-Mart has carried LDS titles since 1992, but now they regularly carry 40-60 LDS titles at any given time. 'Standing for Something' has become the No. 1 book for the Western region of Wal-Mart. After two weeks, it knocked John Grisham's book, 'The Brethren,' off the top of the list."
Swapp thinks the most interesting thing about the book's sales is that Deseret Book customers have frequently purchased more than one copy per family. Many have purchased individual copies for unmarried children. "Another book that has sold very well for us is (the LDS historical fiction series) 'The Work and the Glory,' but it was usually handed down from one person in the family to another and people argued over who would read it next. People are getting their own copies of President Hinckley's book. My own daughter called me and said she had to have her own copy. Many are giving it to friends."
By Swapp's estimate, the only other books that would compete in popularity in the LDS market in recent years are the biography of President Spencer W. Kimball, by Edward and Andrew Kimball and the biography of President Hinckley by Dew.
Dew is especially pleased that Random House has been so happy with the book and that CBS correspondent Mike Wallace was interested in writing the foreword. Dew called Wallace personally, and he said, "I like that man immensely. It would be my privilege to write a foreword to his book."
Dew thinks that both Random House and Wallace give credibility to the book.
"It establishes President Hinckley as a legitimate world religious leader, and while sales are being driven largely by members of the church, it is also placing the book in the hands of people who are not members. President Hinckley has always said, 'The purpose of the gospel is to make bad men good and good men better.' It looks like this book will contribute to that aim.
"The message of the book is common-sense living. It's a wonderful thing."
You can reach Dennis Lythgoe by e-mail at dennis@desnews.com