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The Secret
By Jerry Adler
Newsweek
March 5, 2007 issue - If you're a woman trying to lose weight, you had your choice of two pieces of advice last week. One, from the
American Heart Association, was to eat more vegetables and exercise an hour a day. The other was from a woman named
Rhonda Byrne, a former television producer who has written what could be the fastest-selling book of its kind in the history of
publishing with 1.75 million copies projected to be in print by March 2, just over three months since it came out, plus 1.5 million
DVDs sold. Byrne's recommendation was to avoid looking at fat people. Based on what she calls the
Newsweek
March 5, 2007 issue - If you're a woman trying to lose weight, you had your choice of two pieces of advice last week. One, from the
American Heart Association, was to eat more vegetables and exercise an hour a day. The other was from a woman named
Rhonda Byrne, a former television producer who has written what could be the fastest-selling book of its kind in the history of
publishing with 1.75 million copies projected to be in print by March 2, just over three months since it came out, plus 1.5 million
DVDs sold. Byrne's recommendation was to avoid looking at fat people. Based on what she calls the
Get the DVD NOW!!!
"law of attraction"—that thoughts, good or bad
, "attract" more of whatever they're about—
she writes: "If you see people who are
overweight, do not observe them, but
immediately switch your mind to the picture
of you in your perfect body and feel it." So if
you're having trouble giving up ice cream,
maybe you could just cut back on "
The Sopranos" instead.
You'd think the last thing Americans need
is more excuses for self-absorption and
acquisitiveness. But our inexhaustible
appetite for "affirmation" and "inspiration"
and "motivation" has finally outstripped
the combined efforts of
Wayne Dyer, Anthony Robbins,
Dr. Phil and Mitch Albom. We have
actually begun importing self-help—
and from Australia, of all places, that
citadel of tough-minded individualism,
"law of attraction"—that thoughts, good or bad
, "attract" more of whatever they're about—
she writes: "If you see people who are
overweight, do not observe them, but
immediately switch your mind to the picture
of you in your perfect body and feel it." So if
you're having trouble giving up ice cream,
maybe you could just cut back on "
The Sopranos" instead.
You'd think the last thing Americans need
is more excuses for self-absorption and
acquisitiveness. But our inexhaustible
appetite for "affirmation" and "inspiration"
and "motivation" has finally outstripped
the combined efforts of
Wayne Dyer, Anthony Robbins,
Dr. Phil and Mitch Albom. We have
actually begun importing self-help—
and from Australia, of all places, that
citadel of tough-minded individualism,
where just a couple of years ago Byrne was a divorced mother in her 50s who had hit a rocky patch in her business and personal
lives. It was in that moment of despair, when she "wept and wept and wept" (as she recounted to Oprah on the first of two
broadcasts devoted to her work), that she discovered a long-neglected book dating from 1910 called "The Science of Getting
Rich." In it she found how to let your thoughts and feelings get you everything you want, and determined to share it with the world.
She called it "The Secret."
And it was that stroke of marketing genius that turned what might have been a blip on the Times's "Advice, How-To,
Miscellaneous" best-seller list into a publishing phenomenon that Sara Nelson, editor of Publishers Weekly, says "could become
this decade's 'Tuesdays With Morrie'." "Nobody," she adds, "ever went broke overestimating the desperate unhappiness of the
American public." Self-help books roll off the presses with the regularity of politicians' biographies, and sell much better; Wayne
Dyer all by himself has written 29 of them with sales estimated at 50 million. But Byrne had something else going for her. "It was
lives. It was in that moment of despair, when she "wept and wept and wept" (as she recounted to Oprah on the first of two
broadcasts devoted to her work), that she discovered a long-neglected book dating from 1910 called "The Science of Getting
Rich." In it she found how to let your thoughts and feelings get you everything you want, and determined to share it with the world.
She called it "The Secret."
And it was that stroke of marketing genius that turned what might have been a blip on the Times's "Advice, How-To,
Miscellaneous" best-seller list into a publishing phenomenon that Sara Nelson, editor of Publishers Weekly, says "could become
this decade's 'Tuesdays With Morrie'." "Nobody," she adds, "ever went broke overestimating the desperate unhappiness of the
American public." Self-help books roll off the presses with the regularity of politicians' biographies, and sell much better; Wayne
Dyer all by himself has written 29 of them with sales estimated at 50 million. But Byrne had something else going for her. "It was
Miscellaneous" best-seller list into a publishing phenomenon that Sara
Nelson, editor of Publishers Weekly, says "could become this decade's
'Tuesdays With Morrie'." "Nobody," she adds, "ever went broke
overestimating the desperate unhappiness of the American public."
Self-help books roll off the presses with the regularity of politicians'
biographies, and sell much better; Wayne Dyer all by himself has written
29 of them with sales estimated at 50 million. But Byrne had something
else going for her. "It was an incredibly savvy move to call it 'The Secret',"
says Donavin Bennes, a buyer who specializes in metaphysics for
Borders Books. "We all want to be in on a secret. But to present it as the
secret, that was brilliant."
Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17314883/site/newsweek/
Nelson, editor of Publishers Weekly, says "could become this decade's
'Tuesdays With Morrie'." "Nobody," she adds, "ever went broke
overestimating the desperate unhappiness of the American public."
Self-help books roll off the presses with the regularity of politicians'
biographies, and sell much better; Wayne Dyer all by himself has written
29 of them with sales estimated at 50 million. But Byrne had something
else going for her. "It was an incredibly savvy move to call it 'The Secret',"
says Donavin Bennes, a buyer who specializes in metaphysics for
Borders Books. "We all want to be in on a secret. But to present it as the
secret, that was brilliant."
Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17314883/site/newsweek/
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