People underestimate the lifespan of trends,” says Mitch Horowitz, editor-in-chief of Penguin's Tarcher imprint. “The Secret will be around for some time to come. This is the most significant reintroduction of ideas about spirituality and prosperity in 50 years.”

Hay House CEO Reid Tracy says his company has sold hundreds of thousands of copies of Jerry and Esther Hicks's law-of-attraction-related titles as a direct result of The Secret. The publisher releases the Hickses' new book, The Astonishing Power of Emotions, this week with a 150,000 first printing. “People are definitely searching out other stuff after The Secret and it benefits the whole category,” Tracy says.

Jo Ann Deck, publisher at Crossing Press/Celestial Arts, agrees. “The Secret has revitalized the New Age base. I expect to see many more books on this subject.”

Readers' fascination with these titles should come as no surprise, says Sterling president and CEO Charles Nurnberg. “These ideas have been around for a long time. They're drawing in new readers, but people have always been interested in this topic,” he says. “The Secret has been done a hundred times.”

Emerging Interest in Existing Topics

While none of those earlier books took off into the popular culture stratosphere like The Secret, the surge of interest in the topic has benefited them, too.

Tarcher's Success Classics line began before The Secret, but saw demand spike in titles such as Wallace D. Wattles's The Science of Getting Rich—written in 1910—after The Secret broke out. Despite being in the public domain—it's available for download online and has competing editions from other publishers—Tarcher has 50,000 copies of Wattles's book in print. This fall the publisher will add three new books to the series: Charles Haanel's The Master Key System, Wattles's The Science of Being Great and Robert Collier's The Secret of the Ages. It will also release The Prosperity Bible in November, a boxed set of landmark writings on the topic just in time for the holidays.

Rob Meadows, v-p of sales and marketing at Inner Traditions, believes that the renaissance in interest in older titles and traditions signals why it's important for the category to take a long view.

“What seems to be an emerging topic is more accurately an emerging interest in an existing topic,” says Meadows. “In other words, it has all been done before, usually more thoroughly and freely than now, and our mission is to keep alive and preserve endangered or lost or suppressed traditional practices.”

Nearly everyone agrees the nature of publishing in this category is cyclical and that the hot “new” ideas driving sales have come around before.

“The challenge is for publishers to retain these readers by enticing them with new material that will help them take the next step in their own process,” says Munro Magruder, associate publisher at New World Library. He hopes that readers will be seeking books like Marc Allen's The Greatest Secret of All (Jan., 2008), which he says places a greater emphasis on how readers can attract emotional health. The book will have a first printing of 25,000 copies.

However, some project that the trend will ultimately evolve toward more selfless concerns, citing a backlash in spiritual quarters that view The Secret phenomenon as too centered on personal gain.

Red Wheel/Weiser publisher Jan Johnson says, “I've turned down a lot of manuscripts that billed themselves as 'like The Secret.' Manifesting material objects is not about the greater good.”

Kelly Notaras, editorial director at Sounds True, agrees. “I believe the cream will rise to the top—teachers will take what the world has now learned about the power of manifestation and use that as a basis to guide readers deeper, toward practices that bear the fruits of generosity and compassion.”

Once a secret gets out, it usually becomes old news. So perhaps the most surprising thing about the blockbuster success of Rhonda Byrne's The Secret may be that it keeps getting sold, then sold and sold again. The Secret passed the bona fide publishing phenomenon mark a few million copies ago, right around the time Oprah raved about it. But it's not just The Secret that's selling. Readers are snapping up other books that explore similar concepts of how people can use “intention” and thoughts to attract prosperity and happiness.

Beyond Crystals and Chakras
It used to be easy to spot a New Age book—just look for references to crystals or chakras. But now the category's borders have expanded. “It's impossible to put definite parameters around the category,” says Mitch Horowitz, editor-in-chief at Tarcher/Penguin. “It's like trying to define rock and roll.”

Years ago, for example, the category wouldn't have contained a bestseller about spirituality and golf, says William Shinker, publisher of Gotham Books. So far, Gotham has published two—2005's Every Shot Must Have a Purpose, which has sold 75,000 copies, and April's Zen Putting: Mastering the Mental Game of the Greens, with 30,000 copies already in print. “Ten years ago, it would have been a little too 'woo, woo,' but now the books are backed by data and science,” says Shinker.

And it's not just Zen golfing. What other category could include A Unicorn Is Born (HNA), about a pregnant unicorn; Our Gods Wear Spandex (Weiser), on superheroes and myth; and Magickal Self Defense: A Quantum Approach to Warding (Llewellyn), about Wiccan self-protection?

Red Wheel/Weiser publisher Jan Johnson says books like Chris Knowles's Our Gods are drawing in younger readers, but acknowledges “there are parts of the category that will never be mainstream.” Still, an increasing number of New Age, or as some publishers prefer to call it, mind/body/spirit, books cross over to other categories.

Inner Traditions recently translated Books on Fire: The Destruction of Libraries Throughout History from the French. “In a digital age with the Googles of this world wanting to exercise control over literally all information, this is a subject of vital importance that I predict will be on all thinking people's minds going forward,” says sales and marketing v-p Rob Meadows. “Is it New Age? Not exclusively, but for this New Age publisher, it's no different from a book about suppressed practices except in how current it is.”

Joan Brookbank, U.S. director of Merrell Publishers, which specializes in heavily illustrated books on visual subjects, realized early on that photographer Jan Pohribný's Magic Stones: The Secret World of Ancient Megaliths (Oct.) had a potential audience outside the archeology and travel readership. “We had never published in the mind/body/spirit category, but this title deals with ancient temples, ruins and stone circles that seem to have spiritual purposes. Our early customer orders attest to the crossover appeal.”

Like many editors, Sounds True's Kelly Notaras rejects the “New Age” label. “The core of the category, for us anyway, consists of ancient spiritual teachings—Buddhism, Hinduism, Christianity, Kabbalah—none of which are new in any way. These days we think of ourselves as spirituality, or mind/body/spirit, or—in terms of some of the more cutting edge material we publish—New Thought.”

Still, sales for traditional category mainstays like Wicca and lost societies continue to flourish. Llewellyn's list, says acquisitions editor Carrie Obry, features two upcoming Atlantis books, Atlantis: Ancient Legacy, Hidden Prophecy (Oct.) and Atlantis: Lessons from the Lost Continent (Apr., 2008), and plans for several Wicca and magic-related tie-ins for Valentine's Day include Wicked Voodoo Sex and How to Enchant a Man. “The new breadth allows us to throw our net pretty wide,” Obry says. Which means we then have the luxury of deciding which of those books are right for us.”
Healing Science
A growing subcategory within the mind/body/spirit field, New Science books are marrying spirituality and scientific research.

Rob Meadows at Inner Traditions says these books “show how science is discovering what has long been understood by ancient peoples—that existence operates multidimensionally” and not just on a material level. He cites several titles as falling into this expansive new view of science. The second edition of Science and the Akashic Field debuted in June, following the first edition's sales of 30,000 copies in under three years, and DMT: The Spirit Molecule—A Doctor's Revolutionary Research into the Biology of Near-Death and Mystical Experiences, has sold 45,000 copies since 2000.

Penguin/Tarcher hopes for a hit with The Scalpel and the Soul (Mar., 2008), physician Allan J. Hamilton's examination of the intersection between medicine and the supernatural. Editor-in-chief Mitch Horowitz says, “Many physicians have anomalous experiences, but peer pressure keeps them from sharing those. There's a tremendous interest in near-death experience, and someone so steeped in mainstream medicine willing to write so frankly is very brave.”

The interest in scientific research and spirituality extends beyond humans, however. Munro Magruder at New World Library reports that The Emotional Lives of Animals: A Leading Scientist Explores Animal Joy, Sorrow, and Empathy—and Why They Matter is already in its third printing since February and has sold nearly 10,000 copies. New World Library, he says, “does view New Science—type books as a growing section of the market, and we are attempting to selectively acquire into this category.”

With many of their titles, Ten Speed's Crossing Press and Celestial Arts move beyond the realm of documentation, providing instruction on how science can be directly incorporated into readers' lives. Menopause with Science and Soul, published in January by Celestial Arts, joined Crossing Press titles like The Reiki Magic Guide to Self-Attunement and Homeopathic Color and Sound Remedies. Coming this month is Crossing Press's latest new science title, Lifeprints: Deciphering Your Life Purpose from Your Fingerprints by Richard Unger.
The Big Date
One of the things new readers swept into the m/b/s category on the tide of The Secret are sure to notice is the host of titles about the coming of 2012—the end of the Mayan calendar. Predictions about what will happen range from apocalyptic to scientific to nothing at all.

Coming this month from Tarcher/Penguin is 2012: The Return of Quetzalcoatl, Daniel Pinchbeck's shamanic, psychedelic-fueled examination of Mayan wisdom and human consciousness. “This is an active trend and will continue,” says editor-in-chief Mitch Horowitz, citing the title's brisk hardcover sales.

Llewellyn has had success with this topic: The Gaia Project: 2012—The Earth's Coming Great Changes by Hwee-Yong Jang, published in February, has become one of its top sellers this year. Due in February 2008 is Beyond 2012: A Shaman's Call to Personal Change and the Transformation of Global Consciousness by James Endredy.

“There are a slew of survival manuals for the 'end of the world' being published now,” says Elysia Gallo, witchcraft/paganism/magic acquisitions editor for Llewellyn. “The 2012 books represent the metaphysical side of that anxiety and also reflect readers' desire to be as prepared as possible for whatever is coming, physically or spiritually.”

As Llewellyn's own titles show, not all 2012 books focus on the dark side. Some see the year heralding a positive change for humanity.

For example, Red Wheel/Weiser's contribution to the topic, Drunvalo Melchizeek's Serpent of Light (Jan. 2008), balances memoir and adventure. Melchizeek travels the globe to show how 2012 will right ancient imbalances and align the Earth's energy.

“If Indiana Jones had had a cart and a crystal, this book is that. It's not fear-based, but an effort to raise people's consciousness” says publisher Jan Johnson, noting that the publisher has already sold rights for translation into five languages.

“This has practically become its own category,” says Sounds True's editorial director Kelly Notaras. This month the company publishes The Mystery of 2012: Predictions, Prophecies & Possibilities, collecting essays from the major writers in the 2012 field like Daniel Pinchbeck and John Major Jenkins.

Whatever happens or doesn't happen when the year rolls around, most publishers agree that 2012 will be a hot subject for some time—or at least until 2013.