NEW YORK - When the Rev. Eric Butterworth, once
a wildly popular preacher of self-improvement, died last month, his New
York Times obituary quoted a 1987 Forbes story in summarizing
his message: "That we alone have the power within us to solve our
problems, relieve our anxieties and pain, heal our illnesses, improve
our golf game or get a promotion."
It was a thought that resonated then--and now
more than ever. The 1987 story noted the huge size of the self-help
market. But it turns out that that market had hardly been tapped.
Butterworth's successors have moved into publishing's big leagues: Our
new list of the top ten self-help stars includes authors whose books
often outsell even blockbuster novelists.
While Butterworth himself may have been
forgotten, his self-helping descendants like Suze Orman and Dr. Phil
McGraw are everywhere, blanketing bookstores and the airwaves. Covering
everything from personal finance to spiritual renewal--often all at the
same time--they fill a deep-seated need.
"When a society is rich and triumphant,
its people start to ask not just what can be had from life but how can I
live a life that's worth living," says Martin Seligman, former
president of the American Psychological Association, whose own self-help
book, Authentic Happiness (Free Press, 2002), was a bestseller.
Guiding people toward that goal can be quite
rewarding--and not just in the spiritual sense. One mega-seller, Stephen
Covey's The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, is so
massively popular that it gave rise to a publicly traded corporation.
Last year, FranklinCovey (nyse: FC
- news
- people
), which is in the business of providing "integrated training
and performance-enhancement solutions to organizations and
individuals," recorded sales of $333 million.
Self-help books have been around since before
the Civil War. What is new is the scale and the variety of media
employed by these authors.
In 2001, 3,500 new self-help titles, amounting
to 2.6% of all new titles, were published in the U.S., according to
Simba Information, a market research firm that focuses on the publishing
industry. In terms of sales, self-help was even more pervasive,
amounting to 5.7% of all consumer book sales, Simba says. (Our Self-Help
Stars list ranks authors according to the sales of their two most
popular titles since the start of 2002; sales figures were provided by
Nielsen BookScan.)
But book sales are just for starters. A
successful self-help author really cleans up giving speeches. Then there
are other income streams, which include training programs (Kenneth
Blanchard), wellness therapies (Dr. Andrew Weil), mission formulators
(Covey), calendars (Richard Carlson) and yoga lessons (Deepak Chopra),
along with a variety of others.
Orman and McGraw have their own television
shows. McGraw and Covey have such huge followings that even their kids'
books have become bestsellers.
Sean Covey wrote his own book, The 7 Habits
of Highly Effective Teens, not to mention the associated workbook.
Just as effective are the McGraws. Dr. Phil's son Jay McGraw followed
his dad's Life Strategies and The Life Strategies Workbook
with his Life Strategies for Teens.
While the bestsellers certainly help those who
write them, one problem is the lack of proof that they help others,
Seligman says. For example, self-help perennial Anthony Robbins'
techniques are probably good, but no one ever tests them, according to
Seligman. But Americans aren't waiting for the test results. Buyers of
books, speeches, tapes and seminars are lining up.
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