Bestseller Bytes
-- Publishers Weekly, 12/19/2007
In her blog, Karen Kingsbury talks about "an unforgettable birthday gift." When her son Tyler turned 15, she got him tickets to a Hannah Montana concert, plus backstage passes—eight in all. Kingsbury brought the singer one of her novels, and when Hannah heard Kingsbury's name, she exclaimed, "You're my favorite author. Can I hug you?" "We exchanged contact information and agreed to get together soon," wrote the author, describing the occasion as "a chance to make a friend, in a way only God could bring about." Her new inspirational novel, Between Sundays, is Kingsbury's first hardcover. Zondervan reports 221,000 copies in print after three trips to press.
Tyndale reports that Quiet Strength by Tony Dungy is its 15th printing, with 770,000 copies, and is the bestselling NFL-related hardcover title in history. The publisher also says it's the bestselling sports-related book since Seabiscuit
Shadow Mountain's initial print run for Christmas Jars by Jason F. Wright, first published in October 2005, was 50,000; by that year's end it was up to 90,000 copies. In 2006, it was released in hardcover gift-book format, and the publisher sold more than 120,000 copies of both editions. This year Shadow Mountain printed 115,000 copies of the paperback and 125,000 of the hardcover. PW's review said, "The heart of this novella is its transformative message about the power of giving." Wright has received e-mails from hundreds of readers who have begun Christmas jars of their own.
