I am looking for books with consistantly strong sales over the years,
not faddish bestsellers. For Example, the "Chicago Manual of Style" is
a great bestseller because every copywrighter must have a copy; the
Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders is a great
bestseller because every mental health professional needs a copy. The
Publication Manual of the APA is a great bestseller. These books will
always sell well. This is what I am looking for. Consistant,
non-faddish bestsellers is what I am looking for. I don't need sales
numbers, just a general list. Academic books are best. I understand
that there are some children's books that are great non-faddish
bestsellers - I don't need any children's books. Thank you for your
time.

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Request for Question Clarification by juggler-ga on 20 Oct 2003 22:47 PDT

How big of a list did you want?  

You mention that you don't want children's books.   Is everything else
fair game?  Cookbooks? Travel guides? Popular fiction with
consistently strong sales (e.g., Stephen King)?

---

Clarification of Question by rtabell-ga on 22 Oct 2003 21:30 PDT

Size of List: The best you can do. 40 at least.

Type of Books: Anything will do as long as we are not talking about
low priced books like children's books or mass market paperbacks like
Michael Crichton. I'm trying to stay away from the low priced books.
Travel guides are OK, cookbooks OK. Academic/professional books are
best. Books with consistantly good sales and preferably higher price
range.

---

Clarification of Question by rtabell-ga on 24 Oct 2003 15:16 PDT

When I say "consistantly strong sales over the years" I mean over the
past 5-10 years. I am looking for books that are on Copyright.

I want books like "Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental
Disorders" and "Publication Manual of the APA" which have strong sales
today and will have strong sales at a similar level 2 years from now.

With respect, you seem to have a curious attitude towards books.
First, I'm surprised you should provide such curious examples of
consistent best sellers - I would have expected you to mention the
real blockbusters like the Bible, Works of Shakespeare, and classics
like Tolstoy's War & Peace, Dickens' David Copperfield, or Melville's
Moby Dick. Second, books like that, which are out of copyright are
published in a multitude of editions, some cheap, some expensive.
Third, if consistent high sales over a long period is the criterion,
then surely late 20th century writers like Michael Crichton should not
come into your thinking at all - I would say he is in your "faddish"
category. Perhaps you should define your requirements more precisely.

A list of non-fiction books that just keep selling year after year.  

As I am just a commentator and not a paid researcher, this list is not
40 books long nor have I checked to see if there are expensive
editions of these books available, but I do give you some lists of
book lists you can go to.

I'm very confused by  your remark that the DSM is a great bestseller. 
That is actually why I did not spend more time researching an answer
for you as I am not quite sure of your definition of a "bestseller".

If I were to give you a list of the books that sell as FEW copies of
the DSM each year it would run to the tens of thousands.  Indeed, it
is a good bet that more hardcover copies of The Christmas Carol by
Dickens sell each year than the DSM.  Actually, the books that, as far
as I can tell, best meet your definition of consistent "best seller"
would be dictionaries and reference books for high school and college
students.  Hence, my confusion as you are not asking for a list of
such books.

However, of the following lists, the first might prove to be the most
useful for you: it is the list of the 100 books in the most libraries
in the United States

http://libraryspot.com/lists/listoclc.htm

The 100 best non-fiction books of the 20th Century
http://www.randomhouse.com/modernlibrary/100bestnonfiction.html

Publisher's Week Lists of Best Sellers for the entire 20th Century
http://www.caderbooks.com/bestintro.html


Without knowing your target audience, I'm going to take a wild guess
and pick books for someone who has been asked to setup a small book
display in a business hotel lobby so passerbys/guests who have nothing
to read may then buy one of these expensive? hardcover books.

If this is an incorrect target audience, you need to let the
researchers know.  For example, books selected for a hospital lobby
display case would differ significantly as I would select far more
fiction titles and lighter reading.

I just couldn't resist 1 children's book that adults love to buy (see
last book).

Note, most of  the same diet books show up on best seller lists across
multiple decades.

Dieting and Cooking

Atkins for Life, Atkins, Robert
Better Homes & Gardens New Cook Book 
Weight Watchers 365-Day Menu Cookbook 
Joy of Cooking, Irma S. Rombauer, Marion Rombauer Becker, and Ethan
Becker
Weight Watchers Fast and Fabulous Cookbook 

Classics

The Art of War  by Sun-Tzu, et al  (there are so many different
version of this book, I'm sure you can find an expensive illustrated
edition.)

The Joy of Sex, Alex Comfort 

Reference

The Elements of Style, by William Strunk, Jr., 3rd ed.
The Chicago Manual of Style, 
Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders: DSM-IV, 4th ed.
MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers, by Joseph Gibaldi

Business

THE 7 HABITS OF HIGHLY EFFECTIVE PEOPLE by Stephen R. Covey 
THE ONE MINUTE MANAGER by Kenneth Blanchard, PhD, and Spencer Johnson,
M.D.
GETTING TO YES by Roger Fisher, William Ury, and Bruce Patton (Penguin
The Third Wave, by Alvin Toffler

Children's Book

The New Way Things Work  by David Macaulay (Houghton Mifflin)

Hope this free comment provides you with some useful pointers.

I couldn't stay away from this question, because you hit on a topic
that has interested me for years.  What books sell well every year
(called evergreens in the book publishing business)?

So I went ahead and did some more research on this topic and have
listed some 60  (44 +16) books that sell  well from year to year.  
Most of them are in the top 2000 best selling books over the past
decade.  I've left out diet books, management books, most genre books.

I've prefaced books I know are available in hard cover with an
asterisk and the more expensive books with two asterisks.  However, I
suspect that most of them are available in  hard cover.



SPIRITUAL/RELIGON  

*Holy Longing: The Search for a Christian Spirituality	by Ronald
Rolheiser
The Imitation of Christ			by Thomas A Kempis
*When Bad Things Happen to Good People	by Harold Kushner
*Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance	by Robert Pirsig
*The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment	by Eckhart Tolle
*The Circle: How the Power of a Single Wish Can Change Your Life by
Laura Day
Alcoholics Anonymous

REFERENCE

**The Social Work Dictionary   	by Robert Barker
**The Visual Display of Quantitative Information  by Edward Tufte
**The Chicago Manual of Style
**The National Geographic Atlas of the World
**The American Horticultural Society Encyclopedia of Plants and
Flowers  ed Trevor Cole
**The American Horticultural Society A-Z Encyclopedia of Garden Plants
  ed Christopher Brickell
**Graphic Artists Guild Handbook of Pricing and Ethical Guideline
*Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary
*Elements of Style	by Strunk and White
**Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association 
*Robert's Rules of Order
CLIFF NOTES  AP Biology   (Cliff Notes for high schoolers always sell
well)

GIFT BOOKS

**Ansel Adams  Classic Images Vol 1  	by James Alinder
**Georgia O'Keefe  One Hundred Flowers   	ed. by Nicholas Calloway
*Sensational Bouquets by Christian Tortu: 	by Christian Tortu
*Through the Lens: National Geographics Greatest Photographs    
         ed. Leah Bendavid-Val

HISTORY/SOCIOLOGY

*The Peloponnesian War  by Donald Kagan

*Empire: The Rise and Demise of the British World Order and Its
Lessons for Global Power  by Niall Ferguson

*How the Irish Saved Civilization: The Untold Story of Ireland's
Heroic Role from the Fall of Rome to the Rise of Medieval Europe	by
Thomas Cahill

Confederate Women	by Bell Irvin Wiley

Civilization and Its Discontents	by Sigmund Freud
Guns, Germs, and Steel`		by Jared Diamond
The Lexus and the Olive Tree   	by Thomas Friedman

Night				by Elie Wiesel

*Origins of Totalitarianism	by Hannah Arendt

*`Prince			by Machiavelli
*Free to Choose			by Milton Friedman, Rose Friedman
*Democracy in America		by Alexis de Tocqueville

MISC.

*New Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain	by Betty Edwards

*Well-Tended Perennial Garden: Planting and Pruning Techniques  by
Tracy DiSabato-Aust

*Siddartha	by Hermann Hesse
*Mythology	by Edith Hamilton
*Frankenstein	by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
*Once and Future King	by T.H. White
*Dune			by Frank Herbert  (Science Fiction)
*Ender's Game		by Orson Scott Card  (Science Fiction)
**The Lord of the Rings	J.R.R. Tolkien  (Fantasy)


MOST POPULAR LITERATURE

I also give you a short list of the "real" evergreens - even though
they are not high-priced books they have sold well for decades and
most are in the top 500.  I suspect because they are all on
high-school reading lists.  Most should be available in hard cover as
well.

To Kill a Mockingbird	by Harper Lee
Catcher in the Rye	by J.D. Salinger
Great Gatsby`		by F. Scott Fitzgerald
1984			by George Orwell
Lord of the Flies 	by William Golding
Animal Farm   		by George Orwell
All Quiet on the Western Front	by Erich Maria Remarque
The Diary of a Young Girl	by Anne Frank
The Autobiography of Malcom X	by Malcolm X as told to Alex Haley
Of Mice and Men	by John Steinbeck
Grapes of Wrath		by John Steinbeck
East of Eden		by John Steinbeck
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn	by Mark Twain
The Red Badge of Courage	by Stephen Crane
Wuthering Heights	by Emily Bronte
Pride and Prejudice	Jane Austen