The Guinness Record

Guinness World Records 2003, the 48th edition of the bestselling collection of record-breaking stats, is looking to keep its favorite record intact. In the new edition, one finds this claim: "excluding non-copyright works such as the Bible and the Qu'ran, the world's all-time bestselling book is Guinness World Records." The supporting stats: global sales in 37 languages that exceeded 91,941,000 as of June 2001. The latest edition, published in August to take advantage of back-to-school shopping, was released with more than four million copies worldwide; one million of these are earmarked for the U.S. market. The book is available in 22 languages in more than 80 countries. (Calling publishers worldwide: Can you beat these numbers? If you have sales figures that are higher, let us know.) Marketing included a week of promotion on The CBS Early Show and lots of print coverage.