Spaces Trades Is Up

Meredith Books has a mega-hit on its hands—Trading Spaces Behind the Scenes: Including Decorating Tips and Tricks. Fans of cable TV's Trading Spaces are not surprised—the Learning Channel show has been doing astoundingly well; finishing its third season, it's the #1 program on TLC (that translates to more than six million viewers per week). And they are buying the books—Meredith reports that there are 460,000 copies in print after three trips to press; first printing was 325,000. An additional 200,000 copies have been ordered and will be hitting stores in about a week. Published March 18, the book is among the top 10 at Amazon, reaching as high as #2 (#1 is, of course, the fifth Harry Potter book). Trading Spaces will also be featured in the June issues of Redbook and Home magazines. Meredith has three more Trading Spaces titles scheduled for August 15: two how-to decorating books—Trading Spaces: Color! and Trading Spaces: Make It Yours!—plus Paige on Paige by Paige Davis, the show's popular host.

So how did this Des Moines, Iowa, house end up publishing for this edgy, bold and funny show? Last August, when Meredith general manager Doug Guendel called TLC about licensing books based on the show, he was told that the network had already narrowed its choice down to 10 publishers with proposals under consideration. Guendel convinced them to consider one more proposal, and the rest is history.