53 Of the top 100 Personal Development titles were issued pre-2020
Personal Development Hail to the King as Vex leads sector high
back over the 2,000-copy mark; the title has only sold below that figure three times since. All told, King has earned a stress-reducing £3.1m through BookScan since launch, a period which of course is missing 36 weeks of data. #GoodVibesOnly indeed, Mr King. Matt Haig’s The Comfort Book
is in second place, 35,000 units behind Good Vibes, Good Life. Although the gap is in some ways closer, as in October 2021 canny Canongate released a “winter gift edition” of Haig’s title—which had only been published three months earlier—that moved another 15,000 units. James Clear’s
Sector all-time top five
01
JAMES CLEAR AND LEFT VEX KING HIT THE TOP THREE
two to one in value terms. It perhaps should be noted
Atomic Habits is tops in Popular Psychology and at £1.1m joins Good Vibes, Good Life and The Comfort Book as the only three titles to shift seven figures in value terms. Atomic Habits outsold the next pop psych title, Thomas Erickson’s Surrounded by Idiots, by a factor of
Title
1 Good Vibes, Good Life 2 The Comfort Book 3 Atomic Habits
4 Healing Is the New High 5 12 Rules for Life 6 Twelve and a Half 7 Surrounded by Idiots 8 Fake Law
9 Women Don’t Owe You Pretty 10 The Chimp Paradox 11 Rich Dad Poor Dad 12 The 48 Laws of Power 13 All on the Board
14 How to Win Friends... 15 Zero Negativity 16 Happy
17 Happy Sexy Millionaire 18 Thinking, Fast and Slow 19 A State of Fear
All told, Vex King has earned a stress- reducing £3.1m through BookScan since launch
Author
Vex King Matt Haig
James Clear Vex King
Jordan B Petersen Gary Vaynerchuk Thomas Erikson
The Secret Barrister Florence Given Prof Steve Peters Robert T Kiyosaki Robert Greene -
Dale Carnegie Ant Middleton Fearne Cotton Steven Bartlett
Daniel Kahneman Laura Dodsworth
20 The Subtle Art of Not Giving... Mark Manson
TheBookseller.com Imprint
Hay House Canongate
ISBN (+978) Volume 1788171823 141,881 1786898296 106,582
RH Business 1847941831 89,885 Hay House Penguin
HarperBusiness 0063143791 59,575 Vermilion Picador Cassell
Vermilion Plata
Profile
Yellow Kite Vermilion
1788174770 83,169 0141988511 77,023
1785042188 55,503 1529009989 50,980 1788402118 49,225 0091935580 43,693 1612680194 42,472 1861972781 40,925 1473691247 38,085 0091906818 37,487
HarperCollins 0008336530 36,486 Orion Spring 1409175070 35,781 Yellow Kite Penguin
1529301496 35,539 0141033570 33,128
Pinter & Martin 1780667201 32,059 HarperOne
0062457714 32,012
that there are some odd bedfel- lows in Personal Development. Sub-categories Personal Development: General, Popular Psychology and Careers & Success (£6m through TCM42 last year) go together like fish, chips and mushy peas. But Law, Citizenship & Rights (TCM42: £1.2m) seems not quite to blend; to prolong the takeaway metaphor, it’s like adding a lamb bhuna with that fish supper. At any rate, that is why we have the Secret Barrister’s latest take-down of the justice system, Fake Law, in the same top 20 as Gary Vaynerchuk’s
look at the emotional intelligence you need to succeed in business, Twelve and a Half. Personal Development titles
can backlist for yonks. Eleven of this top 20 were published before the 2020s—including Dr Steve Peters’ The Chimp Paradox (2012), the category’s all-time bestseller— as were 53 of the top 100.
Date Range TCM42 2021 plus first three weeks of 2022 Source Nielsen
The Chimp Paradox Prof Steve Peters Vermilion
02
Who Moved My Cheese Dr Spencer Johnson Vermilion
03
Thinking, Fast and Slow Daniel Kahneman Penguin
04
Change Your Life In 7 Days Paul McKenna Bantam
05
The 7 Habits... Stephen R Covey Simon & Schuster
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