Hello there. Thanks for your question.
By "relationship manuals" I assume you mean the self-help genre of
books that focus on getting along with your spouse, significant other,
boss, parents, kids or anyone else by being more
assertive/compassionate/focused/centered/ intimidating/powerful...you
name it. There's no shortage of these, as they regularly make the
best seller lists.
The best source of information, I believe, would be the Publishers
Weekly annual lists of non-fiction bestsellers, which are available
for the entire 20th century (well...though 1998 anyway) at the site
below:
http://publishing.about.com/cs/bookselling/
which describes itself this way: "We publish an annual entertainment
almanac in conjunction with People Magazine which presents a
storehouse of useful and interesting facts and features about the
entire world of entertainment. Included in the book is Publisher's
Weekly's list of bestselling hardcover books for the entire century.
This archive presents all of those bestsellers from this century. This
is a data feature only."
From these lists, I've extracted the best-selling relationship book
for each year in the 1970s, as an example of what's available. I'd be
more than happy to extract a full list for all the years you're
interested in BUT -- this is a fairly subjective call, and I think
you're better off scanning the lists yourself to decide what best
suits your research needs (for instance, some books repeat as #1
inmore than year -- do you want them listed twice?).
However, if you'd prefer me to do it, simply respond with a clarifying
request, and I'm happy to go through the list. Also let me know if
you need years beyond 1998, and I'll get those as well.
Hope this does the trick. And as for your willingness to negotiate
the fee, the original offer will do quite nicely, thank you.
Bestseller from the 1970's:
1970 Everything You Always Wanted To Know About Sex but Were Afraid To
Ask, David Reuben, M.D.
1971 The Sensous Man, "M",
1972 I'm O.K., You're O.K., Thomas Harris
1973 The Joy of Sex, Alex Comfort
1974 The Total Woman, Marabel Morgan
1975 Winning Through Intimidation, Robert Ringer
1976 Your Erroneous Zones, Dr. Wayne W. Dyer
1977 Looking Out for #1, Robert Ringer
1978 Pulling Your Own Strings, Dr. Wayne W. Dyer
1979 Aunt Erma's Cope Book, Erma Bombeck |
Clarification of Answer by
davidsar-ga
on
21 Jun 2002 13:16 PDT
Forgot to mention my search strategy, which was simply to go to
about.com (one of my favorite research sites, next to Google, of
course) and look at their "Publishing" page.
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Request for Answer Clarification by
balaga-ga
on
23 Jun 2002 12:01 PDT
I appreciate your efforts, but this does not answer my request. I
asked specifically for a list of best-selling relationship manuals,
excluding sex manauls. you have given me a list of general self-help,
including sex manauls. Only one of these books would count for my list
(The Total Woman). I have already tried Publishers Weekly, as it is an
obvious place to start. I have also tried the NY Times, various UK
newspapers and publishing houses, plus Amazon and other well-known UK
book shops. If you have any further ideas, you could maybe run them by
me first, so as not to waste your time. Thanks.
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Clarification of Answer by
davidsar-ga
on
23 Jun 2002 16:37 PDT
Hello again, Balaga. Sorry to hear you were dissatisfied with my
answer. I'd like to help, and to do so, I need some more information
from you as to precisely what you mean by a "relationship manual". In
looking over the list I provided, it's not clear what attributes "The
Total Woman" possesses that make it a relationship manual, that the
other books do not have. If you can clarify this for me, perhaps I
can provide a better response.
Dave
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Request for Answer Clarification by
balaga-ga
on
24 Jun 2002 08:57 PDT
By relationship manuals, I mean those books that are about a pair
relationship (ie one person and her or his spouse, 'significant other'
or sexual partner). Books about getting on generally in life, with the
boss, at work, with the kids, etc are excluded, as are sex manuals.
The books you list from 1970, 1971 and 1973 are sex manuals. The book
listed for 1972 is a popularised version of transactional analysis for
use just about anywhere. The books for 1975, 1976, 1977 and 1979 are
again quite general self-help, and not relationship manuals. The Total
Woman is all about how to get along with hubby, and therefore
qualifies. Other books that I would expect to see on the list are
titles such as "Men are From Mars" "Women Who Love Too Much" "The
Rules" "The Cinderella Complex" "The Surrendered Wife" and so on. It
really is a huge genre and I am convinced that there must be a way of
getting the titles for each of the years I want, and proabably sales
figures, too. Thanks for your efforts so far.
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Clarification of Answer by
davidsar-ga
on
24 Jun 2002 17:35 PDT
I wish there was more I could contribute here, but I'm at a bit of a
loss. The definition of "relationship manual" still seems very
subjective, and I'm not sure what to include or exclude. For
instance, is the 1973 bestseller "Open Marriage" by Nena and George
O'Neill a relationship manual that should be included, or something to
be avoided. I hope you will at least try purusing the list I provided
from Publishers Weekly to see for yourself if it's possible to extract
the books you need from this list.
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Request for Answer Clarification by
balaga-ga
on
25 Jun 2002 03:35 PDT
As I have already told you, I looked at that particular list some
months ago. Whilst it provides some information of the kind I am
looking at, the data is incomplete, and therefore worthless to me, I
am afraid. I need a full list, covering all the years mentioned, from
the same source. The category I am looking for is indeed somewhat
subjective, but it is nonetheless one that is recognised and used by
the publishing industry. In most cases it is not really all that
difficult to determine whether or not a book lays its emphasis on a
pair relationship. Obviously, any book emphasising the word 'marriage'
would be included, as long as it is not about sex, but about the
relationship itself - there are several books from the 70s about
'open' marriages, and as these advocate changing the behaviour of the
partners in a wider social context than just the detail of their
bedroom techniques, they would be included in the list. I have given
you a definition, and several examples of the kind of text I mean - I
am not sure how I can make it any clearer. I realise it is not an easy
task - if it were, I would have done it myself. I did make it clear in
my original question that I am employed by a university as a
researcher - I said this to make it clear that I am not someone who
cannot find their way around the internet. I have run my search
through all the major search engines, and even Google (which is far
superior to about.com for academic work) has proved fruitless. The
reason I say the price is negotiable is because I am aware that this
could take a lot of time and a lot of digging.
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Request for Answer Clarification by
balaga-ga
on
25 Jun 2002 03:36 PDT
The deadline can be flexible, as well as the price.
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Clarification of Answer by
davidsar-ga
on
25 Jun 2002 03:52 PDT
OK Balaga-ga, I'm going to stick with this one and keep on trying, but
I do need to know one more thing from you before I can dive back in.
You said in your last message that: "The category I am looking for is
indeed somewhat
subjective, but it is nonetheless one that is recognised and used by
the publishing industry." I need help here, as I have not come across
use of the category of "relationship manuals" in the publishing
industry. So I would like very much to know where you've come across
its use. If you can direct me to an appropriate source, then I can
use that for my starting point for further research. Thanks a lot.
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Request for Answer Clarification by
balaga-ga
on
25 Jun 2002 11:08 PDT
Well, I admire your tenacity! Ok, I have two reasons to suppose that
'relationship' books will be categorised differently from general
self-help. First, on my copies of, for example, "Secrets About Men" by
Barbara DeAngelis, and "If Love is a Game" by Cherie Carter-Scott, on
the back cover by the ISBN number, it says, in capitals
"RELATIONSHIPS." Some have more than one, so, for example, on the back
of "Relationship Rescue" by Philip C McGraw, in the same place, it
says "RELATIONSHIPS/PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT". Other self help books might
say "Self-help/confidence/recovery/etc" there instead (these are
categories that I do not want).
My second reason is this: a publishing house in the UK that wishes to
remain anonymous gave me a list of books published (only by *their*
company, and hence not quite what I need) under the genre of
self-help, and there were various subcategories of the genre, one of
which was 'relationships'. Anything along those lines would count -
love, relationships, divorce, open marriage, etc, etc - all of these
would be ok. Anything including one of these and another as well, like
McGraw's "Relationships/personal development" would also be fine.
Best of luck! And thanks for your help.
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