‘The Secret’ is Out (of Stock)

Atria also sent a box of DVDs to each of the teachers featured in the book, which proved to be as valuable a part of their marketing campaign as anything.

“We looked at all the teachers [showcased in the book] and added up all the books they had sold collectively, which comes to about 400 million copies,” Curr says. “So we knew that there were 22 people in the book who would probably be talking an awful lot about this book.”

One of the higher-profile personalities featured in the book, Jack Canfield, began promoting it in his own electronic newsletter. Others followed. “All of the people involved with ‘The Secret’ were so happy with their experience, they became its spokespeople, formally and informally, whether it was talking to the person down the street or talking to a room full of 100 people,” Curr says.

In the end, the co-publishing agreement between Beyond Words and Atria has helped “The Secret” achieve wild success. “They do all the editorial and all the specialty stuff, and we handle all of the major publishing [responsibilities],” Curr says.

“We never would have been able to have this book without Beyond Words, but Beyond Words would never have been able to publish this book … because the biggest problem that small presses have is that they can’t fund their success. … There’s no way a small press is going to be able to order a 2 million-copy reprint, or even a 100,000-copy one, and then have the resources that you need to manage such a project.”

Curr says she’s sold publishing rights in at least two dozen foreign countries now, and adds that the audio book is finding unprecedented popularity as well with nearly 500,000 on the market already. “The audio [staffers] have told me they’ve never seen the ratio of as strong as this before. I’ve been in some beauty parlors where they’re playing the audio CD instead of the typical New Age music.”