# Books that sold way more copies than you would have thought
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-that-sold-way-more-copies-than-you-would-have-thought/662522
**Category:** Cafe Society
**Created:** [July 3, 2013, 11:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-that-sold-way-more-copies-than-you-would-have-thought/662522 "2013-07-03T11:41:09Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@andrew\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/andrew_1)
#### Post date: [July 3, 2013, 11:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-that-sold-way-more-copies-than-you-would-have-thought/662522/1 "2013-07-03T11:41:09Z")
Anyone know of any good ones? Badly written books that sold a million copies? Books you’d think only ten or twenty people on Earth would be interested in that it turns out a hundred thousand times that many people were? There could be a thousand reasons why you might not expect a book to be popular or even just successful. Do you know of any or have you stumbled across any book recently and been gobsmacked at how many copies it’s sold?
Thought it might make an interesting topic (and for what it’s worth, let’s try to skip any Twilight-sucks-how-did-it-get-so-popular type suggestions, please). For the record, my interest in this sparked after reading Ian Spector’s series of Chuck Norris factbooks [which as of November 2012](http://www.makealivingwriting.com/2012/11/26/learn-writers-creation-ny-times-bestseller/) had sold 800,000 copies.
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### Author:  [@Novelty\_Bobble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Novelty_Bobble)
#### Post date: [July 3, 2013, 11:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-that-sold-way-more-copies-than-you-would-have-thought/662522/2 "2013-07-03T11:48:55Z")
I think the Harry Potter books surprised me. Having read the first four I gave up and wondered whether I’d simply missed the point of them. They seem to just pluck storylines and solutions out of thin air with no real feel of a coherent universe. They just felt badly constructed. There are lots of bells and whistles to keep the kids happy so I’m not surprised they like it, but I am surprised that adults hold them in high regard as literature.
And Dan Brown. I started one of his on holiday (with nothing else to read) and managed about 25 pages before throwing across the room in disgust. I can’t even remember which one it was but it was the worst piece of incessant, smug, patronising exposition I’ve ever had the misfortune of reading.
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### Author:  [@Justin\_Bailey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Justin_Bailey)
#### Post date: [July 3, 2013, 11:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-that-sold-way-more-copies-than-you-would-have-thought/662522/3 "2013-07-03T11:57:02Z")
Congratulations. You’ve made sure this thread couldn’t even get one reply before the OP’s instructions were ignored:
> [@](#):
>
> Thought it might make an interesting topic (and for what it’s worth, let’s try to skip any Twilight-sucks-how-did-it-get-so-popular type suggestions, please).
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### Author:  [@GuanoLad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GuanoLad)
#### Post date: [July 3, 2013, 12:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-that-sold-way-more-copies-than-you-would-have-thought/662522/4 "2013-07-03T12:03:14Z")
The first time I heard anyone mention _Fifty Shades of Grey_ they were describing it as a terrible, badly written book. It then went on to become a phenomenon of popularity, even though almost everyone subsequently continued to call it terrible.
I do not understand.
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### Author:  [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)
#### Post date: [July 3, 2013, 12:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-that-sold-way-more-copies-than-you-would-have-thought/662522/5 "2013-07-03T12:57:59Z")
Note that bad writing does not mean it’s automatically a bad book. The quality of writing is just one factor in the quality of the book, and probably not even the most important ones (the characterization and plot are really what most people pay attention to).
Also, nonfiction and humor sells better than fiction by a considerable amount. People are much more likely to buy a nonfiction book that touches upon a subject of interest than they would a novel, assuming they’ve never heard of the author of either. Indeed, a nonfiction book about an arcane topic can do very well (my brother has had success publishing a book on the history of Harmony Guitars, for instance).
I know one author years ago who had tremendous success writing books on obscure elements of baseball history (e.g., the history of baseball in Japan). They were extremely dry and not well written at all, but no one else was writing anything like it at the time.
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### Author:  [@Crotalus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crotalus)
#### Post date: [July 3, 2013, 1:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-that-sold-way-more-copies-than-you-would-have-thought/662522/6 "2013-07-03T13:13:07Z")
When I finished reading A Brief History of Time, when it was already a huge best seller, I remember thinking “This has to be the most unfinished best seller of all time.” I read a lot of popular science books, and it still amazes me that this book sold 10 million copies.
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### Author:  [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)
#### Post date: [July 3, 2013, 2:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-that-sold-way-more-copies-than-you-would-have-thought/662522/7 "2013-07-03T14:46:43Z")
Back in the Eighties, Allan Bloom’s\*\*\* The Closing of the American Mind\*\*\* became an enormous best seller. My fellow conservatives embraced it and bought it in huge numbers, while liberals trashed Bloom as a fascistic representative of the Religious Right.
I’m one of the few people who actually read the whole thing, and I can tell you this: Allan Bloom was no conservative, much less a religious one (he was a gay Jewish atheist nihilist). Nor was he a fun read! I’m pretty sure most of the people who claimed to love it read only the chapter in which he excoriated the demise of the raditional literary “canon” taught at colleges, and the chapter in which he slammed rock music.
I’d be astonished if most people who bought the book read the many chapters on Plato and Wittgenstein, et al. Most of the book was mighty tedious. I’m extremely surprised it sold so well.
I remember that Michael Kinsley claimed to have printed business cards with his phone number and a promise to pay $500 to anyone who called him, and to have placed those cards in numerous copies of Bloom’s book. Nobody ever called him to collect the money, which confirms my suspicion that nobdody was actually reading it.
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### Author:  [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)
#### Post date: [July 3, 2013, 3:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-that-sold-way-more-copies-than-you-would-have-thought/662522/8 "2013-07-03T15:31:45Z")
The Bible? Available free of charge to anyone that has stayed in a motel/hotel, yet people pay for it.
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### Author:  [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)
#### Post date: [July 3, 2013, 5:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-that-sold-way-more-copies-than-you-would-have-thought/662522/9 "2013-07-03T17:02:01Z")
> [@astorian](#):
>
> I remember that Michael Kinsley claimed to have printed business cards with his phone number and a promise to pay $500 to anyone who called him, and to have placed those cards in numerous copies of Bloom’s book. Nobody ever called him to collect the money, which confirms my suspicion that nobdody was actually reading it.
Know how I know this isn’t true? Because if you stick a business card into a book that’s the place the book opens to. It’s the first thing you see, not something that stays hidden for hundreds of pages. It’s conceivably possible that not one single person ever opened the book at all, but it’s also conceivably possible that the business cards all quantum teleported into the sun.
Laura Hillenbrand’s books are phenomenally popular, yet on subjects most people wouldn’t give a second thought to. Rebecca Skloot’s _The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks_ must have dropped jaws all over publishing as well.
Of course, there were not one, but two books by Duck Dynasty family members in the _New York Times_ hardcover nonfiction bestseller list the last time I checked. Who could have predicted that?
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### Author:  [@buddha\_david](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/buddha_david)
#### Post date: [July 3, 2013, 5:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-that-sold-way-more-copies-than-you-would-have-thought/662522/10 "2013-07-03T17:07:11Z")
_Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance_ sold 5 million copies. The 70’s were truly a weird time.
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### Author:  [@KneadToKnow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KneadToKnow)
#### Post date: [July 3, 2013, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-that-sold-way-more-copies-than-you-would-have-thought/662522/11 "2013-07-03T17:09:23Z")
The collected works of Dave Pelzer.
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### Author:  [@GrandWino](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GrandWino)
#### Post date: [July 3, 2013, 5:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-that-sold-way-more-copies-than-you-would-have-thought/662522/12 "2013-07-03T17:13:46Z")
Go Ask Alice
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### Author:  [@Snickers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snickers)
#### Post date: [July 3, 2013, 5:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-that-sold-way-more-copies-than-you-would-have-thought/662522/13 "2013-07-03T17:20:30Z")
I’m still kind of astonished that Paolini’s dragon series (Eragon, Eldest, and whatever 2 comes after) sold as well as they did. I get why - really young author, really enterprising parents - but they’re pretty awful, and definitely derivative. IMO, anyway.
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### Author:  [@Yllaria](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yllaria)
#### Post date: [July 3, 2013, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-that-sold-way-more-copies-than-you-would-have-thought/662522/14 "2013-07-03T18:33:40Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#):
>
> . . . Rebecca Skloot’s _The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks_ must have dropped jaws all over publishing as well. . .
Sorry. The minute I saw that title, I had to have it. Yes, I’m geeky, but it has HUGE human interest, so I’m not at all surprised by the popularity.
Now, I’d have understood if _ **Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers** _, by Mary Roach, hadn’t made the best seller list. I’d have bought it if the library hadn’t had an audio version, but I’d have understood. Damn, she’s a good writer.
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### Author:  [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)
#### Post date: [July 3, 2013, 6:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-that-sold-way-more-copies-than-you-would-have-thought/662522/15 "2013-07-03T18:36:41Z")
_The Da Vinci Code_ = 80 million
_Jonathan Livingston Seagull_ = 40 million
_Love Story_ = 21 million
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### Author:  [@koeeoaddi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/koeeoaddi)
#### Post date: [July 3, 2013, 6:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-that-sold-way-more-copies-than-you-would-have-thought/662522/16 "2013-07-03T18:37:46Z")
Dianetics.
(Do I win the thread?)
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### Author:  [@Tom\_Scud](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tom_Scud)
#### Post date: [July 3, 2013, 6:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-that-sold-way-more-copies-than-you-would-have-thought/662522/17 "2013-07-03T18:48:15Z")
_The Name of the Rose_ is probably the most accessible of Umberto Eco’s books, but it’s still pretty damn dense for a 50-million-copy bestseller.
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### Author:  [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)
#### Post date: [July 3, 2013, 7:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-that-sold-way-more-copies-than-you-would-have-thought/662522/18 "2013-07-03T19:09:33Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#):
>
> Note that bad writing does not mean it’s automatically a bad book. The quality of writing is just one factor in the quality of the book, and probably not even the most important ones (the characterization and plot are really what most people pay attention to).
May I ask how you are defining “bad writing”?
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### Author:  [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)
#### Post date: [July 3, 2013, 7:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-that-sold-way-more-copies-than-you-would-have-thought/662522/19 "2013-07-03T19:45:13Z")
I know this isn’t what the OP was looking for but I have to cast another vote of amazement that Dan Brown wrote a best-seller. I knew _The Da Vinci Code_ was popular so I decided to check it out. And I was shocked at how badly written it was.
I’m not just talking that it isn’t a literary masterpiece. I’m saying it isn’t even up to the standards of good hack work - the level you’d expect from somebody like Clive Cussler or W.E.B. Griffin. I’m being serious when I say that the average house name series thrillers like _The Destroyer_ or _The Executioner_ are better written than _The Da Vinci Code_.
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### Author:  [@Justin\_Bailey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Justin_Bailey)
#### Post date: [July 3, 2013, 7:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-that-sold-way-more-copies-than-you-would-have-thought/662522/20 "2013-07-03T19:45:43Z")
> [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](#):
>
> May I ask how you are defining “bad writing”?
I’m not **Chuck** , but The Da Vinci Code is really the best example of this idea.
The book moves at such a tremendous speed that you’re compelled to keep reading. As I was reading, I could tell that the writing wasn’t great, but I had to find out what happened next. Dan Brown is an absolute master at telling a story, he’s just not very good at authoring a novel.
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