Tapping Byrne's 'The Secret' with 'Science'

by Judith Rosen, Children's Bookshelf -- Publishers Weekly, 3/6/2007

It's no secret that publishers like to ride the coattails of bestsellers. And with 3.75 million copies soon to be in print and 1.5 million DVDs sold, Rhonda Byrne's The Secret (Beyond Words) is a title whose coattails houses would certainly like to be on. Ironically, several publishers are attempting to capture the Byrne market with a book that's been available for nearly 90 years and is in the public domain: Wallace D. Wattles's The Science of Getting Rich.

"We have two different versions of The Science of Getting Rich, from Joshua Books and Top of the Mountain, and we've sold out of both of them," says New Leaf Distributing president Alim Thompson. Amazon lists more than 23 Wattles books; The Wisdom of Wallace D. Wattles from bnpublishing.com, which includes The Science of Getting Rich, is among its top 300 sellers.

Even with so many editions, as well as free e-books available on the Web, publishers are counting on there being room for more. Thirty-two-year-old metaphysical publisher Inner Traditions/Bear & Company in Rochester, Vt., which has been publishing The Science of Getting Rich under the title Financial Success since 1976 (and has sold 75,000 copies), is hoping to capture a large chunk of the market with a new edition due out later this month. The $6.95 paperback will carry the book's original name with a new subtitle—Attracting Financial Success Through Creative Thought. The redesigned cover will also feature a starburst specifically linking the book to The Secret.

"The response from the reps and the chains was so enthusiastic that we've upped the print run to 50,000," says Cynthia Fowles, director of rights and publicity. The pub date has also been pushed up from the end of March to the 12th. Inner Traditions is negotiating display space in the chains and in Costco, as well as paid placement on Amazon; Yahoo! Search Marketing; and Google ad words.

While Tarcher, for example, plans to release a paperback edition of The Science of Getting Rich in May, Inner Traditions' version has been continuously in print longer than any other. That's because founder Ehud Sperling credits Wattles's book for encouraging him to pursue his dream of owning a publishing house. It was also the first Inner Traditions title to be reviewed by PW; the review noted the author's "gentle philosophy which excludes competition and cheating, and encourages cooperation."

Sperling is not the only entrepreneur to look to Wattles for inspiration. On her Web site (www.thesecret.tv), Byrne singles out Wattles, whom she first read in 2004, for encouraging her to embark on "the great journey that was The Secret." Byrne is even planning a series of seminars based on Wattles's book. "The principles of The Science of Getting Rich," she writes on the Web site, are perfectly harmonious with The Secret, and so we are delighted to present this awesome meeting of the minds."